lEnfllieb  1Rca^^nflo 


THE  LINCOLN  AND 


DOUGLAS  DEBATES 


Kmnnn^Mni 


LINCOLN  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


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/-  7-  '^r. 


THE  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS 

DEBATES 

///  the  Senatorial  Campaign  of  18^8  in  Illinois,  between 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  Stephen  Arnohi  Douglas; 

contaiiiinor  also  Lincoln's  Address  at 

Cooper  Institute 


WITH   INTRODUCTION   AND   NOTES 

BY 

ARCHIBALD   LEWIS    ROUTON,    M.A. 
Assistant  Professor  of  English  in  New  York  University 


NEW   YORK 

HENRY    HOLT   AND   COMPANY 

1905 


Copyright,  1905 

BY 

HENRY   HOLT   AXD   COMPANY 


L> 


PREFACE 

In  his  "  Twenty  Years  of  Conp^ress,"  James  G. 
Blaine  characterizes  the  Lincohi-Douglas  debates 
of  1858  as  "  a  discussion  which  at  the  time  was  so 
interesting  as  to  enchain  the  attention  of  a  nation, 
in  its  immediate  effect  so  striking  as  to  effect  the 
organization  of  parties,  in  its  subsequent  effect  so 
powerful  as  to  change  the  fate  of  milHons."  But 
both  as  historical  documents  and  as  masterpieces  of 
the  art  of  debate  they  are  little  known  by  the  present 
generation.  The  editor  of  these  selections  has  pre- 
pared them  for  the  sake  of  their  indisputable  value 
in  both  respects.  As  a  teacher  of  argumentation 
he  has  felt  the  lack  of  available  material  illustrative 
of  the  thrust-and-parry  of  actual  debate,  and  de- 
signs this  volume  to  supply  what  is  almost  a  total 
deficiency  among  edited  specimens  of  argument. 

Of  the  seven  joint  debates  of  the  campaign  the 
speeches  in  three  are  printed  entire — those  in  the 
debates  at  Freeport,  at  Galesburgh,  and  at  Alton ; 
being  the  second,  fifth,  and  seventh  of  the  series. 
They  took  place  before  audiences  ranging  in  politi- 
cal sympathy  from  a  strongly  preponderant  aboli- 
tion sentiment  at  Freeport,  to  an  equally  preponder- 
ant pro-slavery  sentiment  at  Alton.  Their  subject 
matter  includes  all  the  essential  issues  of  the  cam- 

iii 


iv  PREFACE 

paign.  But  though  the  subject  matter  of  one  debate 
is  broadly  similar  to  that  of  the  others,  their  very 
repetitions  before  audiences  of  widely  differing  tem- 
perament afford  a  rare  opportunity  for  the  study  of 
persuasive  adaptation,  as  well  as  for  observing  the 
development  of  the  central  issue,  and  the  growth  of 
Lincoln's  power  in  debate  under  the  stress  of  the 
campaign.  The  debate  at  Ottawa,  the  first  of  the 
series,  and  one  of  those  most  frequently  quoted, 
the  editor  has  chosen  to  omit,  as  being  in  his  opinion 
one  of  the  least  definite  in  its  presentation  of  the 
essential  issues.  The  debates  selected  are  prefaced 
by  Lincoln's  speech  of  June  i6,  1858,  at  Spring- 
field, Illinois,  with  which  he  opened  the  campaign ; 
and  supplemented  by  the  famous  Cooper  Institute 
address  of  February  25,  i860,  as  Lincoln's  ulti- 
mate and  perfected  statement  of  the  anti-slavery 
argument. 

The  annotation  seeks  to  make  clear,  without  the 
necessity  of  further  historical  reference,  the  mean- 
ing and  significance  of  the  political  and  the  personal 
elements  in  the  debates;  it  also  correlates  recurring 
discussions  of  identical  topics,  and  is  suggestive 
upon  matters  of  logical  process,  and  upon  methods 
of  persuasion. 

The  text  of  this  selection  is  substantially  that  of 
the  campaign  edition  of  i860,  published  by  Follett, 
Foster  &  Co.,  of  Columbus,  Ohio.  This  edition, 
published  with  Lincoln's  consent,  without  annota- 
tion, as  a  Republican  campaign  document,  was 
based  on  the  reports  of  Lincoln's  speeches  in  the 


PREFACE  V 

Chicap:o  Tribune  and  of  Doug!:las's  speeches  in  the 
Chicago  Times.  A  few  obvious  grammatical 
errors,  indicative  of  a  hasty  revision  of  the  speeches 
for  printing,  the  editor  has  taken  the  Hberty  to 
correct. 

The  editor  records  with  especial  pleasure  the 
cordial  encouragement  in  the  preparation  of  this 
volume  reccnved  from  Mr.  Horace  White,  of  the 
New  York  Ez'enitii^  Post,  who,  as  a  reporter  for 
the  Chicago  Tribune,  accompanied  Mr.  Lincoln 
throughout  the  campaign  of  1858.  He  is  also  under 
obligation  to  his  colleague.  Prof.  Marshall  S.  Brown 
of- the  Department  of  History,  for  a  critical  reading 
of  the  proof  of  the  introduction. 

A.  L.  B. 
New  York  University, 
August  I,  1^0^. 


The  following  publishers  hazfe  kindly  permitted  the  use 
of  quotations  from  zvorks  published  tinder  their  respective 
copyrights:  D.  Appleton  &  Company,  The  Century  Com- 
pany, Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company,  and  The  Macmillan 
Company. 


CONTENTS 

Introduction         ix 

Lincoln's  Springfield  Speech        1 

Second  Joint  Debate  at  Freeport         14 

Fifth  Joint  Debate  at  Galesburgh 79 

The  Seventh  Joint  Debate  at  Alton        ....  142 

Lincoln's  Address  at  Cooper  Institute     ....  215 

Notes 247 


▼u 


INTRODUCTION 

The  senatorial  campaign  of  1858  in  Illinois  de- 
rives its  historical  importance  from  the  fact  that 
its  influence  was  decisive  in  determining  the  political 
crisis  of  i860.  Before  the  great  series  of  debates 
with  Stephen  A.  Douglas  in  that  campaign,  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  was  a  figure  of  local  significance.  As  a 
result  of  what  was  essentially  his  forensic  victory 
in  the  struggle  with  Douglas,  he  came  to  share  with 
William  H.  Seward  the  leadership  of  the  national 
Republican  party,  and  entered  naturally  upon  the 
path  that  led  to  the  presidency  in  i860.  Before 
that  campaign,  Douglas,  whose  equal  as  a  par- 
liamentary debater  and  party  organizer  Amer- 
ican history  has  hardly  produced,  had  been  for 
eight  years  the  most  forceful  leader  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  and  the  most  conspicuous  figure  in 
national  politics.  As  a  result  of  the  debates 
with  Lincoln,  the  support  of  the  South,  upon  which 
he  had  need  to  depend  for  furtherance  of  his 
ambition  to  become  president,  was  irreparably 
lost,  and  the  great  national  party  whose  candidate 
he  hoped  to  be  was  broken  in  twain.  Beginning 
with  this  campaign  the  long  struggle  against 
slavery  entered,  tliereforc,  upon  its  final  phase.    The 


X  INTRODUCTION 

ultimate  leader  In  the  struggle  of  a  century  to  over- 
throw slavery  had  appeared. 

The  speeches  comprising  the  body  of  this  volume 
contain  a  full  statement — perhaps  the  best  state- 
ment— of  the  slavery  question  as  it  appeared  at 
that  time  to  two  classes  of  people:  those  who  in 
varying  degrees  favored  the  institution  of  slavery, 
and  those  who,  though  they  did  not  yet  aim  to 
exterminate  slavery  from  the  states  in  which  it  was 
rooted,  were  seeking  to  prevent  its  extension  to 
soil  upon  which  it  was  not  yet  established. 

The  fundamental  issue  of  1858 — the  right  or 
wrong  of  slavery — in  its  broad  and  universal 
statement  of  moral  principle  needs  little  elucida- 
tion for  the  student  of  to-day.  But  the  political 
aspects  under  which  it  presented  itself  at  that  time 
are  less  familiar,  and  along  with  the  party  politics 
and  the  personalities  of  the  hour  deserve  explana- 
tion. It  is  the  purpose  of  this  introduction  briefly 
to  set  forth  the  origin  of  the  three  kinds  of  issues 
which  appear  in  the  debates — questions  of  principle, 
questions  of  party  politics,  questions  arising  from 
attacks  made  by  either  candidate  upon  the  political 
acts  of  the  other;  also  to  supplement  this  account 
with  some  portraiture  of  the  debaters  themselves 
as  they  appeared  to  those  who  listened,  and  to  give 
a  general  description  of  the  great  contest  which 
they  waged. 

The  invention  of  the  cotton-gin  by  Eli  Whitney 
in  1793  multiplied  by  fifty  the  amount  of  cotton 
which   a   single   laborer   could   separate    from   the 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

cotton  seed  in  a  day's  work.  This  sincfle  invention 
made  possible  an  increase  of  one  thousand  fold  in 
the  annual  production  of  cotton  in  the  South  be- 
tween 1791  and  i860.  Upon  this  economic  basis  the 
institution  of  slavery  which,  it  had  been  confidently 
supposed  by  all  statesmen,  South  as  well  as  North, 
was  in  process  of  extinction,  reared  a  more  sig- 
nificant growth,  and  became  a  social  and  political 
factor  of  the  most  formidable  magnitude.  But  for 
the  cotton-gin  Maryland,  \'irginia,  and  Kentucky 
would  have  been  reclaimed  from  slavery,  and  Mis- 
souri would  never  have  had  it.  After  1793  the  pros- 
perity of  the  South  was  founded  upon  cotton,  and 
cotton  fostered  slavery.  ''  That  slavery  is  a  blessing 
and  cotton  is  king  were  associated  ideas,  with  which 
the  Southern  mind  was  imbued  in  the  decade  be- 
before  the  war."  ^ 

The  moral  sense  of  the  evil  of  slavery  awakened 
but  slowly  in  the  North,  and  the  people  of  that 
section  were  little  inclined  to  attack  the  institution 
except  when  the  extension  of  slavery  to  new  terri- 
tory was  involved.  The  early  Abolitionists  of  the 
Garrisonian  type — radicals  who  denounced  the  Con- 
stitution as  "  an  agreement  with  Hell  "  because  it 
temporized  with  slavery — were  nearly  as  hateful  to 
the  average  Northern  mind  as  to  the  Southern ; 
nor  did  they  ever  become  numerically  representa- 
tive of  Northern  opinion.  The  aggressive  acts  of 
practical     Northern     statesmen     in    opposition     to 

*  James    Ford    Rhodes'    History    of   the    United    States, 
Vol.  i.  p.  27. 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

slavery  were  limited  to  thwarting  its  growth.  Be- 
fore 1861  no  Free-Soiler,  no  Republican  ever,  with 
the  sanction  of  his  party,  maintained  that  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  there  could 
be  any  interference  from  an  external  source  with 
slavery  in  any  state  where  it  already  existed.  The 
aspect  in  which  the  slavery  problem  presented  itself 
to  the  American  people,  therefore,  throughout  the 
long  period  from  the  admission  of  Missouri  until 
the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  was,  whether  slavery 
should  be  permitted  to  extend  its  sw^ay  into  terri- 
tory where  it  was  not  already  a  recognized  institu- 
tion. Chiefly  the  question  was :  Shall  slavery  be 
sanctioned  in  the  National  Territory  and  in  the 
new  states  from,  time  to  time  to  be  formed  out  of 

ity 

Whether  the  admission  of  Missouri  in  1820 
was  at  stake,  or  the  Wilmot  Proviso  of  1846,  or 
the  admission  of  California  in  1850,  or  the  passage 
of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  in  the  same  year,  or 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  of  1854,  or  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  or  the  Lecompton  Constitution  pro- 
posed for  Kansas  in  1857;  the  broad  outlines  of 
the  general  problem  remained  the  same. 

Thoughtful  men  in  the  years  before  the  great 
crisis  grouped  themselves  upon  this  general  ques- 
tion in  ways  which  the  party  lines  of  any  given 
time  only  imperfectly  represented.  First,  there 
were  the  extreme  radicals :  on  the  side  of  the  South 
they  were  the  "  Fire-eaters,"  who  were  willing  to 
use  any  means  to  extend  slavery ;  on  the  side  of  the 


INTRODUCTION  xiil 

North  they  were  the  Abohtionists,  who,  with  Gar- 
rison, beheved  slavery  "  a  damning  crime "  with 
which  no  compromise  was  possible,  and  who  pro- 
posed the  immediate  freedom  and  enfranchisement 
of  the  nesj^roes.  To  g^ain  their  amX  they  would, 
like  the  "Fire-eaters,"  sacrifice  the  Constitution 
and  the  Union  itself.  Then  there  were  those  of 
more  moderate  views,  embracing  the  great  bulk  of 
people  of  all  parties  who  lay  between  these  two 
extremes.  The  mass  of  people  in  the  South  deemed 
slavery  the  real  source  of  their  prosperity,  and  be- 
came ultimately  convinced  of  its  soundness  in 
principle.  They  further  believed  that  its  existence 
was  sanctioned  by  the  Constitution  throughout  the 
Union  wherever  people  chose  to  have  it.  Yet  until 
late  in  the  decade  preceding  the  War  of  Secession 
they  continued  for  the  most  part  to  subordinate 
their  interpretation  of  the  rights  of  slavery  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  Union.  The  mass  of  people  in 
the  North  deemed  slavery  wTong,  but  they  believed 
there  was  no  constitutional  sanction  for  interfering 
with  it  in  states  where  it  already  existed,  and  they 
deprecated  any  action  respecting  it  which  might 
endanger  the  Union.  In  addition  to  these  four 
classes,  "  there  w^ere  men  so  constituted  that  thev 
could  decline  to  take  any  thought  whether  slavery 
were  right  or  wrong,  and  could  deal  with  every 
question  that  arose  concerning  it  as  a  question  of 
expediency,  or  of  law  and  precedent."^ 

J  William   G.    Brown :    Stephen    Arnold   Douglas,   p.    65. 
(Riverside  Biographical  Series.)     An  admirable  summary. 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

Except  for  the  radicals^  the  people  of  all  parties 
and  sections  were  in  a  mood,  whatever  their  specific 
political  creed,  which  did  not  preclude  the  possi- 
bility of  compromise.  Until  the  actual  dawn  of 
Secession,  the  history  of  the  slavery  question  in 
America  is  a  history  of  compromises  between  the 
effort  of  the  slave  states  to  extend  their  influence 
into  new  territory,  and  the  gradually  awakening 
moral  opposition  of  the  free  states.  Contributing 
to  the  tendency  to  compromise  was  a  strong  feeling 
that  the  slavery  question  was  not  a  proper  political 
issue.  The  greater  parties  were  accordingly  slow 
to  formulate  a  definite  policy  respecting  it.  Until 
the  formation  of  the  Republican  party  in  1856, 
both  of  the  great  parties  of  the  country,  the  Whigs 
and  the  Democrats,  drew  support  from  Northern 
and  Southern  states  alike.  The  Whigs,  Northern 
and  Southern,  and  the  Democrats,  Southern  and 
Northern,  differed  within  their  own  ranks  upon 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  upon  the  extension  of 
slavery  to  the  territories,  upon  its  suppression  in 
the  District  of  Columbia,  and  upon  other  questions 
of  policy  respecting  slavery ;  but  they  tried  to  keep 
these  differences,  however  intense,  out  of  their 
party  platforms,  and,  so  long  as  it  remained  possi- 
ble, deprecated  the  division  of  national  parties 
upon  sectional  lines.  The  Liberty  party  in  the 
North,  the  party  of  the  Abolitionists,  did,  it  is  true, 
from  1840  to  1850  antagonize  slavery  in  the  main 
plank  of  its  platform,  just  as  the  Prohibition  party 
to-day    antagonizes    liquor    selling;   but   the   party 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

drew  small  electoral  support  and  exerted  only  a 
moral  influence.  Not  until  after  1854  did  the 
slavery  question  dominate  all  party  platforms. 

In  1848,  the  year  when  the  WMiigs  elected  Gen- 
eral Taylor  to  the  presidency,  the  slavery  issue  had 
advanced  to  a  new  and  threatening  aspect.  Political 
power  in  Congress  stood  evenly  poised  between 
fifteen  slave  and  fifteen  free  states.  Slavery  and 
the  slave  trade  prevailed  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
l)ia.  An  obsolete  law  compelling  the  return  of 
fugitive  slaves  who  escaped  into  free  territory  en- 
cumbered the  statute  books.  By  the  terms  of  the 
famous  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820,  in  all  of  the 
territory  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  lying  north  of 
latitude  36°  30',  slavery  had  been  forever  forbidden, 
except  in  the  Territory  of  Missouri,  then  promised 
admission  to  the  Union,  and  formally  admitted 
in  182 1  with  a  state  constitution  which  for- 
bade the  legislature  to  make  any  restrictions 
upon  slavery.  In  the  territory  south  of  36°  30', 
slavery  was  permitted.  Tliis  Act  of  Congress, 
though  capable  of  repeal  like  any  other  act, 
had  been  enacted  with  such  assurance  by  all  parties 
that  it  was  to  be  a  permanent  settlement  of  the 
whole  controversy  over  slavery,  and  had  so  long 
stood  the  test  of  time,  that  it  seemed  to  have  the 
stability  and  authority  of  an  article  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. All  these  features  of  the  situation  as  it 
existed  in  1848  seemed  not  inconsistent  with  con- 
tinued quiet.  But  the  fruits  of  the  Mexican  war — 
the  territory  out  of  which  California,  New  Mexico, 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

and  Utah  were  afterward  formed — had  been  ceded 
by  Mexico  in  a  treaty  signed  in  the  February  pre- 
ceding General  Taylor's  election.  The  Southern 
element  in  Congress,  already  accused  of  plotting 
to  secure  the  admission  of  Texas  and  of  fomenting 
the  Mexican  war  as  a  means  of  adding  new  slave 
territory  to  the  United  States,  now  manifested  a 
definite  design  to  open  this  territory  to  slavery. 
But  no  legislation  had  been  so  far  enacted. 
The  Wilmot  Proviso,  introduced  in  Congress  in 
1846  by  David  Wilmot  of  Pennsylvania,  propos- 
ing to  prohibit  slavery  in  all  territory  to  be  ac- 
quired from  ^lexico,  after  uniting  Northern  sen- 
timent against  slavery  as  it  had  never  been 
united  before,  had  failed  to  pass  after  arousing 
extraordinary  debate. 

The  disposition  of  this  new  territory  in  the 
Southwest,  respecting  slavery,  was  the  nucleus  of 
a  growing  and  ominous  unrest.  In  1850  CaHfornia, 
of  her  own  motion^  applied  for  admission  to  the 
Union  w^ith  a  state  constitution  prohibiting  slavery. 
Since  1792-3  Congress  had  followed  the  general 
policy  of  admitting  states  to  the  Union  in  pairs, 
one  slave  and  one  free,  so  as  to  preserve  the  balance 
of  powxr  between  the  slave  and  the  free  states. 
But  to  pair  with  California  no  slave  territory  stood 
ready  for  statehood.  The  South  opposed  the  ad- 
mission of  California  except  upon  the  principle  of 
compensation.  Thus  was  constituted  a  complex 
problem  of  many  aspects :  the  South  wished  to 
open  the  territories  of  New  Mexico  and  Utah  to 


INTROnrCTION  xvii 

slavery ;  she  desired  the  enactment  of  a  more  effi- 
cient law  for  the  recovery  of  fu^c^itive  slaves ;  from 
some  quarters  of  the  South  came  the  demand  that 
Texas  be  divided  into  four  states,  accordin^:  to  a 
privilejT^e  reserved  by  the  national  government  when 
Texas  was  admitted  to  the  Union.  Texas  herself 
presented  for  settlement  certain  monetary  claims 
and  a  troublesome  boundary  dispute  with  New 
Mexico.  From  the  North,  on  the  other  hand, 
came  demands  for  the  prohibition  of  the  interstate 
slave  trade ;  for  the  suppression  of  both  slavery  and 
the  slave  trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and 
for  the  passage  of  the   Wilmot   Proviso. 

After  a  long  struggle  out  of  the  flux  of  contend- 
ing interests  emerged  at  last,  under  the  leadership 
of  Henry  Clay  and  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  the  great 
Compromise  of  1850.  By  the  terms  of  this  agree- 
ment California  was  admitted  as  a  free  state ;  the 
remainder  of  the  area  ceded  by  Mexico  was  formed 
into  territories  with  no  restriction  as  to  slavery ; 
a  new  law  for  the  recovery  of  fugitive  slaves  was 
enacted:  Texas  received  $10,000,000  in  lieu  of  all 
her  claims,  including  those  in  the  boundary  dis- 
pute with  New  Mexico ;  and  the  slave  trade,  but 
not  slavery,  was  i)rohibitcd  in  the  District  of 
Columbia.  No  mention  in  the  final  settlement 
was  made  of  the  interstate  slave  trade,  or  of  the 
proposition  to  divide  Texas  into  four  states.  The 
debates  in  Congress  ui)on  these  measures  furnisli 
much  of  the  most  splendid  oratory  in  our  legisla- 
tive   history.     In    the    galaxy    of    speakers    were 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

Clay,  Webster,  Calhoun,  Cass,  Benton — veteran 
leaders  all — and  the  bold  and  youthful  Douglas. 
All  of  them  save  Calhoun  believed,  or  hoped,  that 
now  an  ultimate  settlement  of  the  problem  of 
slavery  was  reached.  When  Douglas  returned 
from  Washington  to  his  home  in  Illinois  it  was 
with  the  declaration  that  he  never  expected  to  ad- 
dress Congress  again  upon  any  aspect  of  the 
slavery  problem. 

Douglas's  share  in  the  legislation  of  1850  made 
him  a  national  leader  of  the  Democratic  party. 
Born  in  Vermont  in  181 3,  and  emigrating  first  to 
New  York  and  afterward  to  Illinois,  he  had  made 
himself  leader  of  the  Jacksonian  Democracy  in  his 
neighborhood  before  he  was  twenty-one  years  of 
age.  Great  personal  magnetism,  extraordinary 
energy  of  character  and  strength  of  intellect,  and 
remarkable  skill  in  debate,  joined  to  a  comprehen- 
sive knowledge  of  the  political  history  of  his 
country,  prognosticated  a  rise  in  political  station, 
almost  unexampled  in  its  swiftness  and  its  au- 
dacity. By  his  discomfiture  of  a  local  orator  of 
some  repute,  Douglas,  who,  though  somewhat  less 
than  five  feet  in  stature,^  possessed  a  great  voice, 
a  deep  chest  and  a  massive  head,  gained  with  his 
first  political  address  the  nickname  of  "  The  Little 
Giant,"  an  epithet  which  clung  to  him  throughout 
his  career.  Beginning  as  district-attorney,  he  was 
next  elected  to  the  state  legislature  in  1836,  where 

*  Henry  Villard,   in  his   Memoirs    (Vol.   i.   p.   55),   says 
that  Douglas  was  "not  over  four  and  a  half  feet  high." 


INTROniTTfOM  xix 

he  was  fcllow-momber  with  tlic  Whi_<^  rci)resenta- 
tive  from  Sani^aniDii  County,  Al)rahani  Lincohi, 
a  quaint,  unq-ainly  person  nearly  two  feet  taller 
than  Douglas,  noted  at  that  time  for  his  rugged 
honesty  and  his  knack  at  story-telling.  Rivals  the 
two  men  shortly  became,  but  strangely  enough,  not 
in  politics,  but  for  the  hand  of  Mary  Todd,  a  young 
woman  whom  Lincoln  subsequently  married. 
Otherwise  the  race  was  for  long  to  the  swifter 
Douglas.  In  1841,  after  serving  a  brief  appoint- 
ment as  Secretary  of  State  in  Illinois,  he  was 
elected  by  the  legislature,  when  he  was  twenty- 
eight  years  old,  a  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
Two  years  later,  when  he  was  already  leader  of 
his  party  in  the  state,  he  entered  Congress  as  a 
representative. 

In  the  House  his  aggressive  energy  made  an  im- 
mediate impression.  How  he  appeared  as  an  orator 
to  a  contemporary^  of  elegant  and  classical  taste  is 
revealed  in  a  passage  in  the  diary  of  John  Quincy 
Adams :  "  His  face  was  convulsed,  his  gesticula- 
tion frantic,  and  he  lashed  himself  into  such  a  heat 
that  if  his  body  had  been  of  combustible  matter  it 
would  have  burnt  out.  In  the  midst  of  his  roaring, 
to  save  himself  from  choking,  he  stripped  and  cast 
away  his  cravat^  unbuttoned  his  waistcoat,  and  had 
the  air  and  aspect  of  a  half-naked  pugilist.  And 
this  man  comes  from  a  judicial  bench  and  passes 
for  an  eloquent  orator !  "  But  to  other  observers 
he  seemed  the  personification  of  the  virility,  the 
constructive  force,  and  the  simplicity  of  the  new 


XX  INTRODVCTIOM 

and  great  West.^  And  before  he  entered  the  Senate 
in  1846  he  had  taken  on  all  the  external  refinement 
of  Washington  life  without  loss  of  native  strength. 
From  the  first  he  was  the  exponent  of  a  vigorous 
foreign  policy,  and  the  advocate  of  internal  im- 
provements upon  a  comprehensive  scale.  Upon 
the  moral  aspect  of  slavery  Douglas  was  indiflfer- 
ent.  He  was  one  of  those  "  who  could  deal  with 
every  question  concerning  it  as  a  question  of  ex- 
pediency or  of  law  and  precedent."  Never  in  his 
public  career  did  he  admit  that  slavery  was  wrong. 
His  opponents  asserted,  and  historians  believe,  that, 
while  Douglas  was  animated  by  a  genuine  desire 
for  the  development  of  the  material  resources,  and 
the  expansion  of  the  national  territory  and  power 
of  America,  he  was  nevertheless  an  unsafe  guide 
in  the  moral  issues  of  politics,  either  because  he 
was  controlled  by  an  overmastering  ambition  for 
political  power,  or  because  he  was  incapable  of 
acute  moral  discernment. 

Thus  appeared  Stephen  A.  Douglas  to  his  con- 
temporaries in  1850.  Already  he  was,  at  thirty-seven, 
the  guiding  spirit  of  his  party  in  Congress ;  and  for 
ten  years  to  come  he  was  to  be  the  boldest  and  most 
skillful  leader,  the  readiest  debater  and  the  most 
superb  fighter  in  American  politics.  Throughout 
that  fateful  decade  he  was  destined  to  be  the  cen- 
tral actor  in  the  mighty  national  drama. 

1  See  quotation  from  J.  J.  Ampere's  Promenade  en 
Ameriqiie,  in  J.  F.  Rhodes'  History  of  the  United  States, 
Vol.   i.  p.  245, 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

For  four  years  the  country  dwelt  in  comparative 
freedom  from  the  slavery  agitation.  Forty-four 
leading"  members  of  Congress  from  free  and  slave 
States  alike  signed  an  agreement  that  they  would 
not  support  for  any  office  whatever  any  man  "  who 
was  not  known  to  oppose  the  renewal,  in  any  form, 
of  agitation  upon  the  subject  of  slaver}'."  ^  Pro- 
foundly unpojmlar  was  Sunmer's  early  attempt  to 
revive  in  Congress  the  discussion  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law.  With  the  laurels  of  the  achieved  com- 
promise bright  upon  his  head,  Douglas  was  a 
prominent  candidate  of  the  younger  Democracy  for 
the  presidential  nomination  of  1852.  But  he,  like 
Cass,  his  chief  rival,  lacked  Southern  support,  and 
the  nomination  passed  to  Franklin  Pierce. 

For  two  years  longer  quiet  prevailed.  Suddenly 
with  hardlv  the  shadow  of  a  warning,  and  accordincf 
to  his  subsequent  statement,  entirely  upon  his  own 
initative,  Douglas  on  January  4,  1854,  reported  from 
the  Committee  on-  Territories  a  bill  to  organize  the 
terj-itory  of  Nebraska  out  of  the  great  area,  north 
and  west  of  Missouri,  which  lay  wholly  north  of 
latitude  36°  30'.  The  startling  feature  of  the  pro- 
posal was  a  clause  authorizing  the  people  of  the 
proposed  territory  to  decide  for  themselves  whether 
they  would  have  slavery  or  not.  On  January  21,, 
Douglas  substituted  for  this  measure  the  famous 
Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  which  differed  from  its  pre- 
decessor only  in  two  particulars.     In  its  final  form 

'J.  F.  Rhodes'  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  i.  p. 
207. 


xxii  INTRODUCTION 

it  affirmed  that  the  slavery  restriction  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  was  inconsistent  with  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  legislation  of  1850,  and  was  therefore 
inoperative  and  void;  and  it  further  divided  the 
territory  described  in  the  former  bill  into  two 
parts,  the  northern  to  be  called  Nebraska,  and  the 
southern,  Kansas. 

Throughout  the  country  the  measure  produced 
the  most  violent  sensation.  To  the  South  it  was 
an  enormous  concession,  for  it  meant  the  repeal  of 
the  rock-ribbed  Missouri  Compromise.  By  infer- 
ence it  opened  the  whole  of  the  national  territory 
to  slavery,  subject  only  to  the  will  of  the  territorial 
inhabitants.  It  meant  the  abdication  by  Congress 
of  the  right,  hitherto  never  seriously  questioned, 
to  exercise  absolute  authority  over  the  affairs  of 
the  territories.  In  the  North  no  Southern  aggres- 
sion ever  provoked  such  stupendous  and  unanimous 
wrath.  In  mass  meetings,  in  the  press  and  the 
pulpit,  in  petitions  to  Congress,  and  the  protests  of 
legislatures,  popular  indignation  gave  a  vast  and 
weighty  utterance.  Except  in  Illinois,  the  Demo- 
cratic party  throughout  the  North  at  first  neither 
desired  nor  dared  to  support  Douglas.  No  politi- 
cal leader  was  ever  more  execrated.  By  his  own 
declaration  he  ''  could  have  travelled  from  Boston 
to  Chicago  by  the  light  of  his  own  burning 
effigies."  ^ 

The  principle  embodied  in  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
bill    was    called   the    principle    of   "  popular    sove- 

1  W.  G.  Brown :  Stephen  A,  Douglas,  p.  86, 


INTROnrCTION  xxiii 

rcignty."  It  was  not  a  new  one.  In  1847  Lewis 
Cass  had  written  a  letter  to  one  Nicholson  in  Nash- 
ville, Tenn..  in  which  he  proposed  to  settle  the 
slavery  qnestion  in  the  territories  in  a  very  simple 
way.  It  was  to  permit  the  people  of  each  territory 
to  determine  for  themselves  whether  they  should 
have  slavery  or  not.  This  plan  seemed  to  accord 
with  the  democratic  principle  of  individual  liherty 
which  has  at  all  times  lain  at  the  foundation  of 
our  government.  Cass  favored  it  because  he  did 
not  believe  Congress  had  the  right  to  legislate  upon 
the  domestic  institutions  of  the  territories,  and  be- 
cause the  slavery  question  was  exactly  of  the  sort 
which  the  people  of  a  territory  should  determine 
for  themselves.  As  a  solution  of  the  slavery  prob- 
lem **  popular  sovereignty "  evaded  all  responsi- 
bility on  the  part  of  the  national  government  for 
the  conduct  of  domestic  affairs  in  the  territories. 
Douglas  early  seized  upon  the  principle,  made  it 
his  own,  and  to  the  outbreak  of  war  continued  to 
maintain  it  in  debate,  and  sought  to  embody  it  in 
legislation.  As  applied  to  the  state  of  the  slavery 
question  in  1854,  "popular  sovereignty''  was 
inconsistent  with  the  provisions  of  the  ]\Iis- 
souri  Compromise,  which  excluded  slavery  from 
all  territory  north  of  latitude  30°  30',  excei)t  in 
Missouri.  It  was  in  conflict  also  with  an  ex- 
treme Southern  doctrine,  which  maintained  that 
the  right  to  hold  slaves  as  property  was  one 
with  which  neither  Congress  nor  any  territorial 
legislature    had    the    right    to    interfere.     It    was 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION 

contrary,  finally,  to  the  doctrine  that  human  bond- 
age was  a  moral  wrong,  for  the  existence  of  w^hich 
the  national  government  was  responsible  wherever 
its  authority  was  supreme.  Such  was  the  principle 
of  popular,  or  "  squatter "  sovereignty,  which 
aroused  so  profoundly  the  antagonism  of  the 
North. 

In  Congress  the  bill  was  bitterly  assailed.  In 
the  Senate,  Chase  of  Ohio,  and  Seward  of  New 
York,  and  Sumner  of  Massachusetts,  with  others, 
denounced  it  as  a  betrayal  of  the  North  by  its  re- 
peal of  the  Compromise  of  1820,  and  as  part  of  a 
plot  to  nationalize  slavery ;  and  they  accused  Doug- 
las of  bidding,  by  the  bill,  for  Southern  support 
for  the  presidential  nomination  of  1856.  But  in  the 
face  of  the  storm  Douglas  did  not  quail.  One  by 
one  he  met  in  debate  and  overcame  the  ablest 
leaders  of  the  opposition.  The  severe  logic  of 
Chase,  the  lofty  moral  indignation  of  Sumner,  the 
polished  periods  of  Everett,  the  adroitness  of 
Seward  with  his  clear  vision  of  high  moral  law 
were  no  match  in  hand-to-hand  debate  for  the 
astute  resourcefulness  of  the  bold  and  masterful 
Douglas. 

Little  by  little  he  brought  into  line  behind  him  the 
amazed  and  partially  disaffected  elements  of  his 
party  in  Congress.  In  spite  of  the  feeling  which 
convulsed  the  North  there  was  no  revolt  against 
the  powerful  party  organization  in  the  upper  and 
lower  houses  of  legislation,  of  which  Douglas  was 
the   undisputed   head.     To   thwart  the   attempt   of 


IXTRODUCTION  xxv 

Chase  to  divide  llic  Xorthern  and  Southern  win^^s 
of  liis  party  by  shrewd  ameiuhnents  to  the  bill, 
and  to  calm  the  Northern  Democracy,  who  feared 
the  measure  was  the  bep^innin^^  of  a  conspiracy  to 
nationalize  slavery,  he  inserted  this  amendinj;]^ 
clause :  "  It  beinp^  the  true  intent  and  meanini^  of 
this  bill  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  territory 
or  state,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave 
the  inhabitants  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and 
regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own 
way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States."  Against  the  accusation  that  he  was  guilty 
of  political  unfaith  in  moving  the  appeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  he  ingeniously  contended 
that  the  repeal  had  in  effect  been  accomplished  by 
the  legislation  of  the  Compromise  of  1850,  wherein 
Utah  and  New  Mexico  were  allowed  to  determine 
for  themselves  whether  or  not  they  should  admit 
slavery.^  Thus,  declared  Douglas,  the  principle  of 
popular  sovereignty,  or  congressional  non-inter- 
vention, was  made  to  supersede  the  principle  of 
1820,  the  congressional  prohibition  of  slavery  north 
of  latitude  36°  30'. 

Step  by  step  the  bill  was  driven  to  its  passage. 
On  March  3.  1854,  it  passed  the  Senate  by  a  vote 
of  27  to  14.  One  month  later  it  i)assed  the  House, 
and  in  May,  President  Pierce  made  it  a  law  by  his 

"^  It  was  of  some  significance  that  part  of  Utah  lay  north 
of  latitude  36°  30',  though  that  area  was  not  a  portion  of 
the  territory  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  originally  affected 
by  the  Missouri  Compromise. 


xxvi  INTRODUCTION 

signature.  No  more  amazing  personal  triumph 
than  this  of  Douglas  has  occurred  in  our  history; 
nor  so  great  and  fateful  a  sacrifice  of  national 
peace  to  individual  ambition.  Yet,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  those  who  believed  in  slavery  and  of 
those  also  who  were  indifferent  to  its  moral  wrong, 
it  can,  now  as  then,  be  maintained  that  the  policy 
of  Douglas,  while  great  with  ambition,  was  neither 
inconsistent,  dishonest,  nor  insincere. 

Anger  and  turmoil  throughout  the  North  greeted 
the  passage  of  the  bill.  Upon  his  return  to  Chicago 
Douglas  stood  for  four  consecutive  hours  before  a 
huge  mass  meeting  attempting  to  make  his  great 
voice  heard  in  his  defense ;  but  in  vain.  That  night 
Douglas  was  set  upon  and  was  in  danger  of  his  life. 
Throughout  the  country  party  lines  were  broken  up, 
and  all  party  organizations  were  either  in  dissolu- 
tion, or  in  a  state  which  seemed  to  forbode  it.  The 
Democratic  party  itself,  the  party  of  Douglas,  was 
shaken  to  its  foundation.  The  old  Whig  party  had 
been  crushed  in  1852  in  the  victory  of  Pierce,  be- 
cause of  its  incapacity  to  meet  the  rising  issues  of 
the  time,  and  no  organization  had  yet  filled  its 
place.  The  Free-Soilers,  the  successors  of  the 
Liberty  party,  the  heirs  to  its  opposition  to  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery,  had  been,  though  yet  a  minor 
party,  of  growing  significance.  The  "  Know- 
Nothings,"  embracing  a  small  proportion  of  the 
Whigs  and  some  Democrats,  stood  upon  a  curious 
platform  of  opposition  to  foreigners  and  Roman 
Catholics;  but  this  party  had  no  promise  of  per- 


INTRODUCTION  xxvH 

manence.  The  wrong  of  slavery,  its  aggressive 
purpose,  its  threatened  domination  of  the  country 
broke  upon  the  aroused  moral  vision  of  the  North 
in  all  their  naked  enormity.  To  all  people  and 
parties  alike,  it  was  apparent  that  slavery  was  the 
inevitable  problem  of  the  hour ;  that  compromise 
would  be  extremely  difficult  if  not  henceforward 
impossible.  Upon  the  general  platform  of  opposi- 
tion to  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  gradually  as- 
sembled a  body  of  voters  who  first  called  themselves 
the  Anti-Nebraska  men.  They  ultimately  included 
most  of  the  old  Northern  Whigs,  many  Democrats, 
and  all  of  the  Free-Soilers.  These  men  organized 
conventions  in  1854  for  the  first  time  under  the 
name  of  the  Republican  party. 

The  presidential  election  of  1856  loomed  ahead. 
By  extraordinary  eflforts  Douglas  had  partially 
overcome  the  opposition  to  his  policy  in  Illinois. 
In  the  fall  of  1854  his  party  elected  one  state 
officer,  the  only  Democratic  candidate  for  a  state 
office  elected  that  year  in  any  Northern  state.  But 
in  1855  the  Illinois  Legislature  chose,  as  his  col- 
league in  the  United  States  Senate,  Lyman  Trum- 
bull, an  Anti-Nebraska  Democrat.  Trumbull's 
chief  rival  was  a  Whig,  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  this 
time  widely  known  in  his  state  as  a  lawyer,  a  politi- 
cal leader,  and  a  campaign  orator  of  great  effective- 
ness in  direct  and  homely  methods  of  presenting 
truth.  But  the  center  of  the  national  drama  was  now 
Kansas,  where  Freedom  and  Slavery  were  grap- 
pling in  actual  warfare  for  the  control  of  the  ter- 


xx%4ii  IXTRODUCTION 

riton'.  Nebraska  by  common  consent  was  a  free 
territon-,  but  desperate  efforts  were  making  to  win 
its  southern  neighbor  for  slaver}-.  Immigration 
bureaus,  Xonh  and  South,  were  sending  colonists 
thither.  The  pro-slaver\-  immigrants  formed  a 
legislature  first,  and  sanctioned  slaver\-.  The  Free- 
Soil  men,  in  a  numerical  majorit)%  ignored  the  pro- 
ceeding, chose  Topeka  as  their  capital,  and.  after 
framing  a  constitution  which  excluded  slaver}^ 
they  applied  to  Congress  for  admission  as  a  state. 
In  December,  1855.  Us'O  rival  governments  existed 
in  the  territor}-,  and  brawls  and  bloodshed  were  of 
frequent  occurrence.  President  Pierce  favored  the 
pro-slaver\'  government  Douglas,  in  the  Senate, 
proposed  that  Kansas  be  admitted  when  her  popu- 
lation should  reach  93.420,  a  population  sufficient  to 
entitle  her  to  one  representative  in  Congress. 
Meanwhile  matters  grew  worse  and  a  state  of  civil 
war  prevailed.  Under  these  conditions  the  presi- 
dential campaign  of  1856  dawned.  The  first 
fruits  of  the  Kansas-Xebraska  Act  were  ready  to 
pluck. 

On  June  2d,  the  Democratic  national  convention 
met  at  Cincinnati.  The  leading  candidates  were 
President  Pierce,  Douglas,  and  James  Buchanan. 
The  time  was  unpropitious  for  Douglas.  Ten  days 
earlier  the  warfare  in  Kansas  had  reached  a  climax 
in  the  sacking  of  Lawrence,  the  leading  Free-Soil 
town.  There  vras  a  tendency  to  lay  the  Kansas  dis- 
turbance at  the  door  of  the  author  of  the  Kansas- 
Xebraska  bill.     In  addition,  the  disorganized  and 


1  XT  ROD  VCTIOM  xxix 

Ueakened  state  of  the  party  made  it  necessary  to 
conserve  every  strategic  advantage.  Buchanan 
lived  in  Pennsylvania,  then  the  pivotal  state.  Be- 
sides this  the  South,  though  favorable  to  Douglas, 
preferred  a  weaker  man  in  the  White  House,  a 
servant,  not  a  leader.  On  the  fifteenth  ballot 
Buchanan  was  nominated  over  Douglas,  Pierce 
having  withdrawn.  The  goal  of  his  ambition,  to 
attain  which  Douglas  had  paid  so  heavy  a  price, 
receded  four  years  further  into  the  future. 

Before  the  election  the  Administration  suc- 
ceeded in  restoring  order  in  Kansas.  A  sobering 
concern  for  the  safety  of  the  Union  succeeded  the 
indignation  over  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act.  The 
South  stood  solid  for  Buchanan.  The  National  Re- 
publican party,  headed  by  Fremont,  was  not  entirely 
organized  from  its  heterogeneous  elements.  In  the 
election  Buchanan  received  174  electoral  votes,  to 
114  for  Fremont,  and  8  for  Fillmore,  who  was  the 
candidate  of  the  **  Know-Nothings  "  and  the  rem- 
nant of  the  Whigs.  Buchanan  won  the  title  of 
President,  but  Douglas  had  dictated  the  platform 
and  retained  the  reality  of  power. 

The  issue  of  statehood  for  Kansas  remained 
prominent,  but  in  1857  it  was  overshadowed  for  a 
time  by  a  decision  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court,  upon  the  power  of  Congress  over  slavery'  in 
the  territories,  and  the  status  of  negroes  under  the 
Constitution.  In  the  debates  upon  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill,  Douglas  in  reply  to  a  question 
whether  in  his  opinion  the    people    of   a    territory 


XXX  INTRODUCTION 

could,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
exclude  slavery  from  its  limits,  had  answered : 
"  That  is  a  question  for  the  courts."  Now  the  de- 
cision upon  that  question  was  forthcoming.  On 
jMarch  6,  1857,  two  days  after  Buchanan's  inaugu- 
ration, an  opinion  was  handed  down,  touching  the 
right  to  freedom  of  a  negro,  Dred  Scott,  who,  while 
a  slave,  had  been  brought  by  his  master  into  Illinois, 
where  slavery  was  illegal,  and  then  into  the  Louisi- 
ana territory,  north  of  latitude  36°  30'.  With  two 
important  dissenting  opinions  the  court,  with  Chief 
Justice  Taney  presiding,  decided  the  following 
essential  points :  first,  that  negroes  were  not  in- 
cluded in  the  statement  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence that  all  men  are  created  equal;  second, 
that  no  negro  could  become  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States ;  third,  that  the  right  to  hold  slaves  as  prop- 
erty was  affirmed  in  the  Constitution ;  fourth,  that 
neither  Congress  nor  any  territorial  legislature 
could  exclude  slavery  from  any  territory.  The  de- 
cision had  been  anticipated.  But  it  was  the  greatest 
victor}^  yet  won  by  the  South.  Hereafter  slavery 
was  free  to  go  into  the  national  territories  as  it 
pleased.  Again  the  North  was  stirred  to  its  foun- 
dations, and  a  readjustment  of  party  lines  w^as 
necessary.  The  charge  that  there  was  a  conspiracy 
to  nationalize  slavery  was  renewed.  It  w-as  charged 
that  Buchanan  and  the  Supreme  Court  were  in 
collusion,  and  with  anxious  hearts  the  opponents 
of  slavery  predicted  a  further  decision  which  should 
open  the  states  to  slavery,  and  thus  accomplish  the 


INTRODUCTION  xxxi 

full  design  of  the  conspirators.  To  Douglas,  how- 
ever, the  decision  was  a  source  of  confusion. 
At  once  he  declared  the  decision  was  right  and 
must  be  maintained.  lUit  what  of  "popular  sover- 
eignty," the  principle  upon  which  he  had  built  his 
statesmanship?  If  under  the  Constitution  slaves 
were  lawful  property  in  any  territory,  what  became 
of  the  doctrine  that  the  people  of  a  territory  could 
admit  slavery  or  not  as  they  chose?  The  problem 
was  serious.  It  remained  to  be  fought  out  in  the 
campaign  of  1858. 

The  decision  had  also  the  peculiar  effect  of 
making  essentially  the  whole  platform  of  the  new 
Republican  party,  in  its  opposition  to  the  extension 
of  slavery,  unconstitutional.  While  the  position  of 
the  party  was  morally  right,  it  was  difficult  to  de- 
fend it  in  argument,  when  every  point  urged 
involved  a  criticism  of  the  highest  judicial  tribunal 
in  the  land. 

Emboldened  by  continued  successes  the  Southern 
leaders  became  more  audacious  and  overbearing 
than  they  had  ever  been.  The  North  was  thor- 
oughly awake  to  the  desperate  character  of  the 
conflict.  Feeling  ran  so  high  in  Congress  that 
personal  combats  were  daily  feared.  By  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  slavery  was  now  legalized  in  Kansas. 
But  the  problem  of  her  statehood  remained  open. 
Since  1856  three  out  of  every  four  immigrants  had 
come  from  the  free  states.  At  this  juncture  a 
brazen  conspiracy  was  formed  to  bring  Kansas 
into   the   Union    under   a   pro-slavery   constitution. 


xxxii  INT  ROD  UCTION 

Sanctioned  by  the  territorial  legislature,  a  conven- 
tion met  near  the  close  of  1857  at  Lecompton  to 
frame  a  constitution  for  the  new  state.  The  free- 
state  men,  dissatisfied  with  the  mode  of  its  organiza- 
tion, refused  to  attend,  and  its  pro-slaverv'  members, 
after  drawing  up  an  instrument  favoring  slavery, 
fell  in  with  the  scheme,  devised  by  a  Southern  junto 
at  Washington,  of  submitting  it  to  the  people  in 
such  a  way  that  they  had  no  chance  to  vote  against 
the  constitution  as  a  whole,  but  only  "  for  the  Con- 
stitution with  slavery "  or  ''  for  the  Constitution 
without  slaver}'."  And  if  the  "  Constitution  with- 
out slaver}^ "  were  chosen,  it  was  provided  that 
there  should  be  no  interference  with  slavery  wher- 
ever in  the  Territorv  it  alreadv  existed.  At  the 
election  on  December  21,  1857,  the  free-state  men 
refused  to  vote,  and  the  "  Constitution  with 
slaverv'  "  was  chosen  by  a  vote  of  6143  to  589.  In 
reaction  against  this  proceeding  the  free-state  men 
called  a  special  election  on  January  4,  1858,  to  vote 
simply  for  or  against  the  Lecompton  Constitution. 
But  this  time  the  pro-slaver\-  men,  deeming  the 
matter  already  settled,  refused  to  vote,  and  the  poll 
showed  10,266  votes  against  the  Constitution  to  138 
for  it  with  slaver\',  and  24  for  it  without  slavery. 

Now  the  contest  was  brought  before  Congress. 
With  the  Constitution  as  adopted  on  December  21, 
1857,  the  Lecompton  plotters  formally  applied  for 
the  admission  of  Kansas  to  the  L'nion.  President 
Buchanan,  utterly  subservient,  gave  the  influence  of 
the  Administration  to  the  iniquitous  scheme. 


IXTRODCCTION  xxxiii 

For  Douglas  it  was  a  critical  moment.  If  as 
leader  of  his  party  he  lent  his  powerful  aid  to  the 
plot,  it  meant  a  total  and  humiliating  surrender  to 
the  pro-slavery  propaganda.  It  meant  the  sacrifice 
of  the  spirit,  if  not  the  letter  of  popular  sovereignty, 
for  the  Lecompton  Constitution  in  no  sense  ex- 
pressed the  voice  of  the  people.  It  meant  the  loss 
of  enough  of  his  Northern  following  to  imperil  his 
re-election  to  the  Senate  in  the  state  campaign  in 
Illinois  about  to  begin.  On  the  other  hand  if  he 
opposed  the  measure  he  would  sacrifice  the  political 
support  of  the  South  for  which  he  had  paid  so 
heavily.  To  the  surprise  of  the  country  Doug- 
las met  the  issue  by  a  formal  revolt  from  the  policy 
of  his  party,  and  a  refusal  to  support  the  Lecompton 
scheme.  \'igorously  attacking  the  measure,  he  pro- 
cured its  defeat  in  the  House  of  Representatives. 
A  modified  form  of  the  scheme,  called  the  Ens^lish 
Bill,  next  proposed,  offered  the  people  of  Kansas  a 
large  land  grant  if  they  would  accept  the  Lecomp- 
ton Constitution  with  slaver}',  at  a  new  election  to 
be  held  in  August  of  1858.  But  if  they  refused 
thus  to  accept  the  constitution  they  were  to  be  de- 
nied admission  until  their  population  reached 
93.420.  Douglas  opposed  this  bill  as  vigorously 
as  the  other,  but  he  was  unable  to  defeat  it.  The 
people  of  Kansas,  however,  at  the  appointed  election 
refused  the  bribe  of  land,  and  rejected  statehood  as 
thus  offered  by  a  vote  of  five  to  one. 

Save  for  Douglas  the  original  Lecompton  plot 
would     have     succeeded.     Among     the     Southern 


xxxiv  INTRODUCTION 

leaders  wrath  at  his  procedure  succeeded  amaze- 
ment. The  Washington  Union,  the  organ  of  the 
Administration,  called  him  ''  traitor,"  "  renegade," 
"  deserter."  "  I  have  very  little  doubt,"  wrote  a 
journalist  at  Washington,  ''  that  if  compelled  to 
choose  between  Douglas  and  Seward  for  Presi- 
dent, the  whole  band  of  pro-slavery  fire-eaters,  with 
Toombs  at  their  head,  would  vote  for  the  latter." 
But  among  the  Northern  leaders  amazement  gave 
way  to  perplexity.  The  Liberator,  the  organ  of  the 
New  England  Abolitionists,  began  to  commend 
Douglas.  The  Republicans  viewed  him  with 
curious  speculation.  He  was  now  fighting  their 
battle.  He  had  broken  from  his  own  party.  Could 
he  be  planning  to  join  them,  place  himself  at  their 
head,  and  with  them  fight  the  growing  power  of 
slavery?  It  was  a  profoundly  interesting  possi- 
bility. It  appealed  to  many  prominent  Republicans, 
like  Horace  Greeley  and  Anson  G.  Burlingame, 
who  began  to  manifest  unwonted  friendliness.  But 
Douglas,  whatever  dreams  he  may  for  a  time  have 
had,  had  fought  the  Lecompton  conspiracy  because 
it  was  a  dishonorable  betrayal  of  popular  sov- 
ereignty. That  principle,  in  spite  of  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  he  still  maintained  as  affording  the 
best  solution  of  the  slavery  problem.  He  did  not 
care,  any  more  than  in  1854,  "  whether  slavery  were 
voted  down  or  voted  up."  Though  he  was  now 
thwarting  the  advance  of  the  slave  power,  he  could 
not  become  a  Republican.  The  Northern  wing  of 
his  party  comprehended  his  attitude  and  endorsed 


INTRODUCTION  xxxv 

his  policy.  Nevertheless,  this  uncertainty  about  his 
position,  the  p^littering  possibility  of  his  conversion 
to  the  Reimblican  party,  was  a  factor  of  vital  im- 
portance in  adjustinp;-  the  delicate  political  balance 
in  the  canipaip^n  of  1858. 

When  Douglas  returned  to  Illinois  to  enter  upon 
the  contest  for  re-election  to  the  Senate,  the  out- 
look in  the  state  indicated  a  severe  campaign. 
There  was  a  powerful  and  growing  anti-slavery 
party,  though  it  was  composed  of  heterogeneous 
elements  that  had  been,  not  without  difficulty,  fused 
into  agreement  upon  a  specific  policy.  There  was 
also  a  body  of  Buchanan  Democrats  who  voiced 
the  bitter  antagonism  of  the  Washington  Adminis- 
tration against  the  destroyer  of  the  Lecompton  plot. 
On  the  other  hand  Douglas  was  now  in  enthusiastic 
favor  with  the  mass  of  his  party  in  Illinois,  who  sus- 
tained him  in  his  revolt  and  applauded  his  con- 
tinued maintenance  of  "  popular  sovereignty  "  and 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  in  the  faith  that  the  two 
were  not  irreconcilable.  Besides  this  body  of  sup- 
port, many  national  leaders  of  the  Republican  party 
openly  advocated  his  return  to  the  Senate,  and  out 
of  admiration  or  gratitude  for  what  he  had  done 
and  hope  for  what  he  might  become,  deprecated 
opposition  to  him  on  the  part  of  the  Republicans  of 
Illinois. 

In  this  peculiar  state  of  affairs  the  Republican 
state  convention,  on  June  16,  at  Springfield,  under 
circumstances  of  great  enthusiasm  tendered  a 
unanimous  nomination  for  the  senatorial  vacancy  to 


xxxvi  INT  ROD  UCTION 

Abraham  Lincoln.  On  the  evening  of  that  day  * 
]\Ir.  Lincoln  opened  the  campaign  with  the  speech 
which  begins  the  series  in  this  volume. 

The  candidate  thus  honored,  one  whose  fame  was 
only  just  beginning  to  creep  beyond  the  confines  of 
his  state,  was  a  man  of  lowly  origin  and  of  singu- 
lar power.  Educated  in  the  constant  companion- 
ship of  the  Bible,  Shakespeare,  and  Euclid,  he  had 
no  better  opportunities  for  social  or  further  mental 
culture  than  what  came  to  him  as  a  local  surveyor 
or  as  a  clerk  in  a  country  grocery.  Grotesque  in 
appearance,  he  was  in  character  strangely  com- 
pounded. He  was  lanky  in  body,  abnormally  tall, 
awkward  in  movement,  physically  indolent,  and 
attired  habitually  in  ill-fitting  garments.  In  his 
mentality  he  conjoined  the  coarse  thought  and 
speech  of  the  frontier  tavern  with  absolute  purity 
of  personal  morals,  and  inflexible  honesty.  In  him 
dwelt  also  the  extremes  of  melancholy  and  humor ; 
the  one  bringing  him  in  desperate  wrestling  at 
times  to  the  verge  of  madness,  the  other  leading 
him  by  beneficent  reaction  even  to  the  length  of 
buffoonery.     He  possessed  a  profoundly  intuitive 

ijime  i6  is  given  as  the  date  of  this  speech  by  Nicolay 
and  Hay  in  their  history;  by  J.  F.  Rhodes  (History  of 
U.  S.,  Vol.  ii.  p.  314);  by  J.  T.  Morse,  in  his  life  of 
Lincoln  in  the  American  Statesmen  series ;  by  Douglas  him- 
self in  the  Alton  debate,  and  by  other  authorities.  June 
17  is  given  as  the  date  in  the  edition  of  the  speeches  of 
1858,  revised  by  Lincoln  for  the  campaign  of  i860.  Hern- 
don,  in  his  life  of  Lincoln,  is  not  clear  upon  the  matter, 
but  seems  also  to  indicate  the  latter  date. 


INTRODUCTION  xxxvii 

and  sympathetic  comprehension  of  the  i)lain  pco- 
I)le,  and  throuc^h  moral  and  ])hilosophic  insii^ht 
perhaps  more  than  any  other  man  he  knew  and  re- 
vered the  Truth  for  its  own  sake.  To  these  traits 
were  added  ,c:reat  power  of  concentration  and  an 
intense  personal  ambition. 

Admitted  to  the  bar  as  soon  as  his  opportunities 
permitted,  he  came  to  be  considered  the  best  jury 
lawyer  in  Illinois ;  but  in  distinction  from  Doui^las 
he  was  deemed  a  poor  advocate  in  a  bad  cause.  As 
a  lawyer  he  was  keen  in  analysis,  and  eminently 
fair  in  his  statement  of  a  case ;  so  that  his  opponents 
could  take  no  exception  to  his  presentation  of  their 
position.  Quaint  parables  and  illustrations,  and  an 
inexhaustible  fund  of  wit  and  humorous  stories  gave 
a  strong-  popular  appeal  to  logical  argument  that 
was  habitually  sound  in  its  process. 

His  transition  to  political  life  was  gradual,  but 
natural.  From  1834  to  1837  he  served  in  the  state 
legislature,  and  made  at  that  time  a  public  asser- 
tion that  slavery  was  "  founded  on  injustice  and 
bad  policy."  In  1846  he  began  his  service  of  a 
single  term  in  Congress,  and  during  the  two  years 
voted  for  the  Wilmot  Proviso  forty-two  times. 
The  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  in  1854 
recalled  Lincoln  from  the  practice  of  law  to  which 
he  had  returned  at  the  end  of  his  term  in  Congress, 
and  he  began  to  deliver  speeches  in  opposition  to 
Douglas,  who  quickly  recognized  in  him  an  unusual 
opponent.  In  1855  Lincoln  was  a  strong  Anti-Xe- 
braska   candidate    for   United   States   Senator,   but 


xxxviii  INT  ROD  UCTION 

under  circumstances  of  rare  magnanimity  threw  his 
support  to  Judge  Lyman  Trumbull,  whose  election 
was  thereby  assured.  By  1856  his  leadership  of 
the  new  Republican  Party  in  his  state  was  assured, 
and  he  even  received  considerable  support  for  the 
presidential  nomination. 

Such  was  the  man,  strangely  in  contrast  with 
Douglas,  who  was  now  his  opponent  in  the  critical 
campaign  about  to  begin.  Douglas  did  not  under- 
rate his  antagonist.  "  I  shall  have  my  hands  full," 
he  said.  "  He  is  the  strong  man  of  his  party — full 
of  wit,  facts,  dates — and  the  best  stump  speaker, 
with  his  droll  ways  and  dry  jokes,  in  the  West.  He 
is  as  honest  as  he  is  shrewd ;  and  if  I  beat  him  my 
victory  will  be  hardly  won." 

Conditions  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign  fa- 
vored Douglas.  His  incomparable  prestige  as  the 
foremost  American  statesman  made  a  handicap 
against  which  Lincoln  struggled  without  success. 
As  an  attempt  to  offset  the  prestige  of  Douglas, 
Lincoln  determined  upon  the  bold  plan  of  meeting 
him  face  to  face  in  a  series  of  joint  debates.  After 
some  hesitation  Douglas  accepted  the  challenge,  and 
seven  meetings  were  agreed  upon.  The  places  set- 
tled upon  for  the  debates  were,  in  order:  Ottawa 
and  Freeport,  in  the  Republican  strongholds  of 
Northern  Illinois ;  Charleston,  Galesburg,  and 
Ouincy,  localities  in  Central  Illinois,  where  the  two 
parties  were  nearly  of  equal  strength ;  and  Jonesboro 
and  Alton,  in  the  strongly  Democratic  region  of 
southern  Illinois.    The  conditions  of  the  first  debate 


INTRODUCTION  xxxix 

at  Ottawa  were  that  Doui^las  should  open  with  a 
speech  of  an  hour,  with  Lincohi  to  reply  for  an  hour 
and  a  half,  and  Doug^las  to  close  with  a  rejoinder 
of  thirty  minutes.  In  the  remaining  debates  the 
conditions  were  the  same,  except  that  the  speakers 
alternated  in  the  privilege  of  opening  and  closing. 

The  resulting  forensic  struggle  is  comparable 
but  to  one  other  in  American  history — that  between 
Webster  and  llayne.  The  two  men  presented  a 
picturesque  contrast  as  they  faced  one  another : — 
Lincoln,  with  yellow,  wrinkled  face,  and  lean,  un- 
gainly figure,  much  over  six  feet  in  height ;  Doug- 
las, with  massy  figure,  wonderful  leonine  head, 
black  flowing  hair,  swarthy  complexion,  brilliant, 
dark,  magnetic  eyes,  yet  with  less  than  five  feet  of 
stature.  As  speakers  they  were  not  less  in  striking 
contrast.  *'  The  Democratic  spokesman,"  writes 
Mr.  Henry  \'illard  in  his  Memoirs,^  '*  commanded 
a  strong,  sonorous  voice,  a  rapid,  vigorous  utter- 
ance, a  telling  play  of  countenance,  impressive  ges- 
tures, and  all  the  other  art  of  the  practiced  speaker. 
As  far  as  external  conditions  were  concerned,  there 
was  nothing  in  favor  of  Lincoln.  He  had  an  .  .  . 
indescribably  gawky  figure,  an  odd-featured,  inex- 
pressive, and  altogether  uncomely  face.  He  used 
singularly  awkward,  almost  absurd,  up-and-down 
and  sidewise  movements  of  his  body  to  cfive  em- 
phasis  to  his  arguments.  His  voice  was  naturally 
good,  but  he  frequently  raised  it  to  an  unnatural 
pitch."     Yet  as  he  became  moved  1)y  the  fervor  of 

1  Vol.  i.,  pp.  cjj-j. 


xl  INTRODUCTION 

speaking,  much  of  his  harsh,  awkward  manner  gave 
place  to  a  sort  of  natural  freedom  and  dignity,  and 
even  grace,  his  face  became  mobile  and  expressive, 
and  his  voice,  too,  softened  and  became  flexible  and 
melodious. 

In  their  methods  of  debate  they  were  equally  un- 
like. ''  In  the  whole  field  of  American  politics,"  ^ 
say  Nicolay  and  Hay,  ''  no  man  has  equaled  Douglas 
in  the  expedients  and  strateg}^  of  debate.  Lacking 
originality  and  constructive  logic,  he  had  great 
facility  in  appropriating  by  ingenious  restatement 
the  thoughts  and  formulas  of  others.  He  was  tire- 
less, ubiquitous,  unseizable.  It  would  have  been  as 
easy  to  hold  a  globule  of  mercury  under  the  finger's 
tip  as  to  fasten  him  to  a  point  he  wished  to  evade. 
He  could  almost  invert  a  proposition  by  a  plausible 
paraphrase.  He  delighted  in  enlarging  an  op- 
ponent's proposition  to  a  forced  inference,  ridicu- 
lous in  form  and  monstrous  in  dimensions.  In 
spirit  he  was  alert,  combative,  aggressive;  in  man- 
ner patronizing  and  aggressive  by  turns. 

"  Lincoln's  mental  equipment  was  of  an  entirely 
different  order.  His  principal  weapon  was  direct 
unswerving  logic.  His  fairness  of  statement  and 
generosity  of  admission  had  long  been  proverbial. 
For  these  intellectual  duels  with  Douglas  he  pos- 
sessed a  power  of  analysis  that  easily  outran  and 
circumvented  the  '  Little  Giant's  '  most  extraordi- 
nary gymnastics  of  argument.  But  disdaining 
mere  quibbles,  he  pursued  lines  of  concise  reason- 

i  Abraham  Lincoln :  A  History.     Vol.  ii.  p.  147. 


INTRODUCTION  xli 

ing  to  maxims  of  constitutional  law  and  political 
morals.  Douj^^las  was  also  forcible  in  statement  and 
bold  in  assertion ;  Lincoln  was  his  superior  in  quaint 
originality,  aptness  of  phrase  and  subtlety  of  defini- 
tion ;  and  oftentimes  Lincoln's  philosophic  vision 
and  poetical  fervor  raised  him  to  flights  of  eloquence 
which  were  not  possible  to  the  fiber  and  temper  of 
his  opponent." 

To  be  victorious  in  the  campaign  Lincoln  had 
need  to  win  the  radical  Abolition  vote,  the  moderate 
Republicans,  and  the  conservative  old-line  Whigs 
for  whose  support  Douglas  also  strove,  and  the 
Americans  or  "  Know-nothings."  The  split  be- 
tween the  Buchanan  and  the  Douglas  Democrats 
favored  him ;  but  on  his  own  part  he  had  to  contend 
against  the  lukewarm  or  hostile  attitude  of  in- 
fluential Republicans  outside  of  Illinois. 

The  interest  in  the  series  of  forensic  encounters 
rapidly  grew.  Vast  audiences  assembled  from  far 
and  near ;  coming  by  train,  journeying  in  slow 
wagons  over  the  dusty  prairie  roads  even  from  ad- 
joining states  to  hear  the  rival  leaders,  mounted  in 
the  open  air  upon  elevated  platforms  of  rough-hewn 
timbers,  wrestle  with  each  other's  convictions  of 
policy  and  of  duty.  Newspapers  throughout  the 
country  published  the  speeches  entire,  and  the  at- 
tention of  the  national  public,  drawn  at  first  by  Lin- 
coln's unexpected  survival  of  the  earlier  debates, 
became  fixed  with  unprecedented  interest  upon  the 
xuifolding  drama  of  a  local  contest. 

I'ersonally,   Lincoln   and   Douglas   were   friends. 


xHi  INTRODUCTION 

The  intention  of  each  was  plainly  to  conduct  the  de- 
bates upon  a  plane  of  courtesy  and  good-feeling. 
Douglas  was  characteristically  brimful  of  good 
nature.  He  had  called  his  opponent,  maybe  with 
a  patronizing  accent,  a  ''  kind,  amiable,  and  in- 
telligent gentleman,  a  good  citizen  and  art  honor- 
able opponent/*  Lincoln  quizzically  replied  to  the 
compliments,  declaring  at  Ottawa  that  he  in 
respect  of  praise  was  like  the  Hoosier  with  his 
gingerbread :  "  He  reckoned  he  liked  it  better  than 
any  other  man,  and  got  less  of  it."  And  yet  once 
when  Douglas  spoke  of  Lincoln  with  too  much  as- 
sumption of  superiority ;  and  again,  when  he  reiter- 
ated without  respectable  evidence  that  Lincoln  and 
Trumbull  had  conspired,  in  1855,  to  join  the  Whigs 
and  Anti-Nebraska  Democrats  into  a  new  party, 
and  capture  for  themselves  the  spoils ;  the  amenities 
of  debate  were  sorely  strained,  and  either  candidate 
gave  way  to  acrimonious  comment.  Even  sharper 
interchanges  were  drawn  forth  when  Lincoln 
charged  that  Douglas  was  a  leading  member  of  a 
formidable  conspiracy  to  nationalize  slavery;  and 
particularly  when  Lincoln  asserted  with  evidence 
that  certain  strongly  Abolition  resolutions  persist- 
ently employed  by  Douglas  as  if  Lincoln  were  re- 
sponsible for  the  doctrines  which  they  contained, 
were  essentially  forgeries  and  known  by  Douglas 
to  be  such.  Besides  these  personalities,  one  serious 
charge  was  continually  reiterated  by  Douglas :  that 
Lincoln  shifted  his  ground,  as  he  passed  from  one 
section  of  the  state  to  another^  that  he  made  his 


INTRODUCTION  xliii 

principles  suit  the  political  complexion  of  his 
audience.^ 

Besides  personal  questions,  there  were  ques- 
tions having  their  origin  in  the  search  for  political 
advantage.  Douglas's  aim  was  to  separate  the 
Whicrs  from  Lincoln's  following.  To  this  end  he 
propounded  seven  questions  to  Lincoln  at  Ottawa, 
with  a  view  of  showing  that  Lincoln  agreed  with 
the  Abolitionists  in  their  entire  policy  regarding  the 
great  questions  of  1850  and  1854.  Lincoln  answered 
the  questions  at  Freeport,  and  avoided  falling  into 
the  trap ;  and  he  at  once  put  four  questions  to 
Douglas,  and  later  a  fifth,  concerning  certain  phases 
of  his  slavery  policy ;  one  of  them  of  so  much  sig- 
nificance that  Douglas's  answer  destroyed  his  pres- 
idential prospects  in  i860. 

But  far  above  questions  of  personalities,  and  ques- 
tions of  politics,  loomed  the  larger  questions  of 
political  and  moral  principle.  Did  Lincoln  at 
Springfield  incite  to  sectionalism  and  revolution? 
Yes,  and  further  urged  interference,  declared  Doug- 
las, with  the  sacred  right  of  people  to  determine 
their  domestic  institutions  for  themselves.  Not  so, 
replied  Lincoln ;  the  Republican  party  seeks  only  to 
prevent  the  extension  of  slavery  and  to  place  it 
where  it  will  disappear  of  itself.  Why  cannot  the 
Union   continue   half   slave   and   half   free   as   our 

1  For  more  detailed  description  of  the  debates,  and  for 
explanation  and  discussion  of  the  issues  of  the  campaign, 
see  the  supplementary  notes.  The  Introduction  miiToly 
states  the  issues  and  correlates  them. 


xliv  INTRODUCTION 

fathers  made  it?  rejoined  Douglas;  and  what  speci- 
fic plan  have  you  for  the  extinction  of  this  economic 
institution?  Then  came  the  great  questions  of  the 
place  of  the  negro  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence, and  of  the  constitutionality  of  slavery.  Here 
Lincoln  was  hampered  by  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
against  which  he  protested  in  the  name  of  truth  and 
justice,  though  it  was  the  verdict  of  the  highest 
judicial  tribunal.  Douglas  declared  that  Lincoln 
was  not  only  seeking  to  divide  the  nation,  and  to 
undermine  our  highest  constitutional  authority,  but 
was  seeking  to  make  the  negro  the  social  and  the 
political  equal  of  the  white  man.  In  rising  at  length 
above  questions  of  state  and  constitution  to  view 
slavery  in  the  light  of  moral  law — of  absolute  right 
and  wrong — Lincoln  placed  the  argument  on  a  plane 
where  Douglas  could  not  follow  him;  but  Lincoln 
was  no  longer  responding  merely  to  the  arguments 
of  a  personal  opponent,  he  had  become  the  voice  of 
the  aroused  conscience  of  a  nation.^  "  That  is  the 
real  issue,"  he  said  at  Alton.  "  That  is  the  issue 
which  will  continue  in  this  country  when  these  poor 
tongues  of  Judge  Douglas  and  myself  shall  be 
silent.  It  is  the  eternal  struggle  between  these 
two  principles — right  and  wrong — throughout  the 
world." 

1  "  I  asked  him  one  day,'*  says  Mr.  Horace  White,  "  why 
he  did  not  oftener  turn  the  laugh  on  Douglas.  He  rephed 
that  he  was  too  much  in  earnest,  and  that  is  was  doubtful 
whether  turning  the  laugh  on  anybody  really  gained  any 
votes." — Herndon's  Life  of  Lincoln,  ii.  loj. 


INTRODUCTION  xlv 

After  a  desperately  severe  campaip^n  in  which 
Douglas  dcHvercd  a  total  of  130  speeches,  and  ex- 
pended $80,000  for  campai^i  expenses,  as  against 
$1000  by  Lincoln,  the  election  revealed  an  ex- 
ceedini^ly  close  resnlt.  In  the  pojHilar  vote  Lincoln 
received  in  the  state  126,084  ballots,  Doui^las 
121.940,  and  the  Buchanan  D^cmocrat,  5,091.  lUit 
an  unfair  apportionment  brought  it  about  that  the 
legislature  contained  a  majority  of  eight  for  Doug- 
las. Lincoln  was  bitterly  disappointed.  To  a  friend 
he  said  that  he  felt  *'  like  the  boy  that  stumped  his 
toe, — '  it  hurt  too  much  to  laugh,  and  he  was  too  big 
to  cry.'  " 

Viewed  from  the  present  day,  Douglas's  victory 
was  a  remarkable  one.  His  task  had  been  her- 
culean. "  There  is,  on  the  whole,"  says  Mr.  L 
N.  Arnold, 1  "  hardly  any  greater  triumph  in  the 
history  of  American  politics  than  his  re-election." 
He  had  won  support  from  the  friends  and  the  ene- 
mies of  slavery  alike.  But  of  Lincoln  himself  Douglas 
said :  2  "I  have  been  in  Congress  sixteen  years,  and 
th'cre  is  not  a  man  whom  I  would  not  rather  meet  in 
debate."  And  the  nation  recognized  in  him  the  com- 
ing of  a  new  leader.  For  though  defeated,  Lincoln 
iiad  organized  his  own  party,  and  rendered  inevitable 
the  fatal  division  of  that  of  his  opponent ;  had  won  a 
moral  victory ;  had,  in  speeches  which  rank  among 
the  masterpieces  of  oratory  in  all  time,  determined 
the  ultimate  form  of  the  slavery  issue,  and  com- 

J  Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  149. 

2  Wilson's  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power,  ii.  577. 


xlvi  IXTRODUCTION 

posed  the  essential  gospel  of  the  anti-slavery  move- 
ment. Before  him  the  pathway  lay  clear  to  the 
stern  and  sad  realization  of  his  high  ambition. 

Bibliographical  Note. — The  best  accounts  of  the 
debates  are  contained  in  general  histories  of  the  period 
and  in  biographies  of  the  participants.  Some  of  the 
most  available  are:  J.  F.  Rhodes'  History  of  the  United 
States,  Vol.  ii. ;  J.  G.  Blaine's  Twenty  Years  of  Con- 
gress; Nicolay  and  Hay's  Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History; 
The  Life  of  Lincoln  by  Herndon  and  Weik,  (Ed.  1892) 
containing  the  description  by  Horace  White ;  L  N. 
Arnold's  Life  of  Lincoln;  J.  T.  Morse's  Abraham  Lin- 
coln; J.  G.  Holland's  Life  of  Lincoln;  W.  Lamon's  Life  of 
Lincoln.  Of  extended  biographies  of  Douglas  there  are 
only  those  by  J.  W.  Sheehan,  Flint,  and  Forney,  all  of  them 
partisan  and  none  of  them  now  readily  accessible ;  but  an 
excellent  sketch  and  analysis  of  his  career  is  easily 
available  in  William  Garrott  Brown's  Stephen  A.  Doug- 
las (Riverside  Biographical  Series).  Special  articles  con- 
cerning Douglas  occur  in  the  North  American  Review, 
Vol.  ciii,  and  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  Vol.  viii,  and  Har- 
per's Monthly,  Vol.  Ixxxvii. 


THE  LINCOLN  AND  DOUGLAS 

DEBATES 


LINCOLN-DOUGLAS 
DEBATES 

Xtncoln'0   SprtngticlD    Spcccb 

Speech  of  Hon.  Abraham  Lincoln,  deHvered  at  Spring- 
field,   111.,   June    36.    1858    at   the   close   of   the   Republican      S 
State  Convention,  by  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  named 
as  candidate  for  United  States  Senator. 

Mr.     President     and     Gentlemen     of     the 
Convention  :    If  we  could  first  know  where  we  are, 
and  whither  we  are  tendinp^,  we  could  better  jud<:^e   10 
what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it.     We  are  now  far  into 
the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the 
avowed  object  and  confident  promise  of  putting  an 
end  to  slavery  agitation.     Under  the  operation  of 
that  policy,  that  agitation  has  not  only  not  ceased,   ^5 
but  has  constantly  augmented.     In  my  opinion,  it 
will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached 
and  passed.    **A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand."     I  believe  this  government  cannot  endure 
permanently   half    slave   and   half   free.     I   do   not  20 
expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved  ;  I  do  not  expect 
the  house  to  fall ;  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be 
divided.     It  will  become  all  one  thing,  or  all  the 
other.  '  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest 
the  further  spread  of  it.  and  place  it  where  the  pub-  25 
lie  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course 


2  LINCOLN'S  SPRINGFIELD   SPEECH 

of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it 
forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the 
States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South. 
Have  we  no  tendency  to  the  latter  condition? 
5  Let  anyone  who  doubts,  carefully  contemplate 
that  now  almost  complete  legal  combination — piece 
of  machinery,  so  to  speak — compounded  of  the 
Nebraska  doctrine  and  the  Dred  Scott  decision. 
Let  him  consider,  not  only  what  work  the  machinery 

lo  is  adapted  to  do,  and  how  well  adapted,  but  also  let 
him  study  the  history  of  its  construction,  and 
trace,  if  he  can,  or  rather  fail,  if  he  can,  to  trace 
the  evidences  of  design,  and  concert  of  action, 
among  its  chief  architects,  from  the  beginning. 

15  The  new  year  of  1854  found  slavery  excluded 
from  more  than  half  the  States  by  State  Constitu- 
tions, and  from  most  of  the  National  territory  by 
Congressional  prohibition.  Four  days  later,  com- 
menced the  struggle  which  ended  in  repealing  that 

20  Congressional  prohibition.  This  opened  all  the 
National  territory  to  slaver^',  and  was  the  first  point 
gained. 

But,  so  far.  Congress  only  had  acted,  and  an 
indorsement  by  the  people,  real  or  apparent,  was 

25  indispensable  to  save  the  point  already  gained,  and 
give  chance  for  more. 

This  necessity  had  not  been  overlooked,  but  had 
been  provided  for,  as  well  as  might  be,  in  the  notable 
argument    of    "  squatter    sovereignty,"    otherwise 

30  called  "  sacred  right  of  self-government,"  which  lat- 
ter phrase,  though  expressive  of  the  only  rightful 


LIXCOLX'S   SPRIXGFIELD   SPEECH  3 

basis  of  any  government,  was  so  perverted  in  this 
attempted  use  of  it  as  to  amount  to  just  this :  That 
if  any  one  man  choose  to  enslave  another,  no  third 
man  shall  be  allowed  to  object.  That  argument  was 
incorporated  into  the  Nebraska  bill  itself,  in  the  5 
language  which  follows :  **  It  being  the  true  intent 
and  meaning  of  this  Act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into 
any  Territory  or  State,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom, 
but  to  leave  the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form 
and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  10 
way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States."  Then  opened  the  roar  of  loose  declamation 
in  favor  of  '*  squatter  sovereignty,"  and  "  sacred 
right  of  self-government."  ''  But,"  said  opposition 
members,  "  let  us  amend  the  bill  so  as  to  expressly  15 
declare  that  the  people  of  the  Territory  may  exclude 
slaver)'."  **  Not  we,"  said  the  friends  of  the  meas- 
ure ;  and  down  they  voted  the  amendment. 

While   the    Nebraska   bill    was    passing   through 
Congress,  a  laiu  case,  involving  the  question  of  a  20 
negro's  freedom,  by  reason  of  his  owner  having  vol- 
untarily taken  him  first  into  a  free  State,  and  then 
into  a  territory  covered  by  the  Congressional  pro- 
hibition, and  held  him  as  a  slave  for  a  long  time  in 
each,  was  passing  through  the  United  States  Circuit  25 
Court    for    the    District    of    Missouri ;    and    both 
Nebraska  bill  and  lawsuit  were  brought  to  a  decision 
in  the  same  month  of  May,  1854.     The  negro's  name 
was  "Dred  Scott,"  which  name  now  designates  the 
decision  finally  made  in  the  case.     Before  the  then  30 
next  Presidential  election,  the  law  case  came  to,  and 


4  LINCOLN'S  SPRINGFIELD  SPEECH 

was  argued  in,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States ;  but  the  decision  of  it  was  deferred  until 
after  the  election.  Still,  before  the  election,  Senator 
Trumbull,  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  requested  the 
5  leading  advocate  of  the  Nebraska  bill  to  state  his 
opinion  whether  the  people  of  a  Territory  can  con- 
stitutionally exclude  slavery  from  their  limits;  and 
the  latter  answers :  "  That  is  a  question  for  the 
Supreme  Court." 

i^  The  election  came.  Mr.  Buchanan  was  elected, 
and  the  indorsement,  such  as  it  was,  secured.  That 
was  the  second  point  gained.  The  indorsement, 
however,  fell  short  of  a  clear  popular  majority  by 
nearly  four  hundred  thousand  votes,  and  so,  per- 

15  haps,  was  not  overwhelmingly  reliable  and  satis- 
factory. The  outgoing  President,  in  his  last  annual 
message,  as  impressively  as  possible  echoed  back 
upon  the  people  the  weight  and  authority  of  the 
indorsement.     The  Supreme  Court  met  again,  did 

20  not  announce  their  decision,  but  ordered  a  re-argu- 
ment. The  Presidential  inauguration  came,  and 
still  no  decision  of  the  court;  but  the  incoming 
President,  in  his  inaugural  address,  fervently 
exhorted  the  people  to  abide  by  the   forthcoming 

25  decision,  whatever  it  might  be.  Then,  in  a  few 
days,  came  the  decision. 

The  reputed  author  of  the  Nebraska  bill  finds  an 
early  occasion  to  make  a  speech  at  this  capital  in- 
dorsing the  Dred   Scott  decision,   and  vehemently 

30  denouncing  all  opposition  to  it.  The  new  President, 
too,  seizes  the  early  occasion  of  the  Silliman  letter  to 


LINCOLN'S  SPRINGFIELD   SPEECH  s 

indorse  and  stronc^ly  construe  that  decision,  and  to 
express  his  astonishment  that  any  different  view 
had  ever  been  entertained  ! 

At  len,c:th  a  squabble  springs  up  between  the  Presi- 
dent and  the  author  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  on  the    5 
mere  question  of  fact,  whether  the  Lecompton  Con- 
stitution was  or  was  not  in  any  just  sense  made  by 
the  people  of  Kansas ;  and  in  that  quarrel  the  latter 
declares  that  all  he  wants  is  a  fair  vote  for  the  people, 
and  that  he  cares  not  whether  slavery  be  voted  dozen  lo 
or  voted  up.     I  do  not  understand  his  declaration, 
that  he  cares  not  whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or 
up,  to  be  intended  by  him  other  than  as  an  apt 
definition  of  the  policy  he  would  impress  upon  the 
public  mind — the  principle   for  which   he   declares  15 
he  has  suffered  so  much,  and  is  ready  to  suffer  to 
the  end.     And  well  may  he  cling-  to  that  principle ! 
If  he  has  any  parental  feeling,  well  may  he  cling  to 
it.     That   principle    is   the   only   shred   left   of   his 
original  Nebraska  doctrine.     Under  the  Dred  Scott  20 
decision    "  squatter    sovereignty "    squatted    out   of 
existence,  tumbled  down  like  temporary  scaffolding ; 
like  the  mould  at  the  foundry,  served  through  one 
blast,  and  fell  back  into  loose  sand ;  helped  to  carry 
an  election,  and  then  was  kicked  to  the  winds.     His  25 
late  joint  struggle  with  the  Republicans,  against  the 
Lecompton    Constitution,    involves   nothing    of   the 
original    Nebraska    doctrine.     That    struggle    was 
made  on  a  point — the  right  of  a  people  to  make  their 
own  constitution — ui)on  which  he  and  the  Repub-  30 
licans  have  never  differed. 


6  LINCOLN'S   SPRINGFIELD   SPEECH 

The  several  points  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  in 
connection  with  Senator  Douglas's  "  care  not " 
policy,  constitute  the  piece  of  machinery,  in  its 
present  state  of  advancement.  This  was  the  third 
5  point  gained.  The  working  points  of  that 
machinery  are : — 

First,  That  no  negro  slave,  imported  as  such 
from  Africa,  and  no  descendant  of  such  slave,  can 
ever  be  a  citizen  of  any  State,  in  the  sense  of  that 

lo  term  as  used  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  This  point  is  made  in  order  to  deprive  the 
negro,  in  every  possible  event,  of  the  benefit  of  that 
provision  of  the  United  States  Constitution  which 
declares  that  "  The  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be 

15  entitled  to  all  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens 
in  the  several  States." 

Secondly,  That,  "  subject  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,"  neither  Congress  nor  a  Terri- 
torial   Legislature   can   exclude   slavery   from   any 

20  United  States  Territory.  This  point  is  made  in 
order  that  individual  men  may  fill  up  the  Territories 
with  slaves,  without  danger  of  losing  them  as  prop- 
erty, and  thus  to  enhance  the  chances  of  permanency 
to  the  institution  through  all  the  future. 

25  Thirdly,  That  whether  the  holding  a  negro  in 
actual  slavery  in  a  free  State,  makes  him  free,  as 
against  the  holder,  the  United  States  courts  will  not 
decide,  but  will  leave  to  be  decided  by  the  courts  of 
any  slave  State,  the  negro  may  be  forced  into  by  the 

30  master.  This  point  is  made,  not  to  be  pressed  imme- 
diately; but,  if  acquiesced  in  for  awhile,  and  appa- 


LINCOLN'S  SPRINGFIELD   SPEECH'  7 

rcntly  indorsed  by  the  people  at  an  election,  then  to 
sustain  the  logical  conclusion  that  what  Dred  Scott's 
master  might  lawfully  do  with  Dred  Scott  in  the  free 
State  of  Illinois,  every  other  master  may  lawfully 
do  with  any  other  one,  or  one  thousand  slaves,  in  5 
Illinois,  or  in  any  other  free  State. 

Auxiliary  to  all  this,  and  working  hand  in  hand 
with  it,  the  Nebraska  doctrine,  or  what  is  left  of  it, 
is  to  educate  and  mould  public  opinion,  at  least 
Northern  public  opinion,  not  to  care  whether  slavery  ^^ 
is  voted  down  or  voted  up.  This  shows  exactly 
where  we  now  are;  and  partially,  also,  whither  we 
are  tending. 

It  will  throw  additional  light  on  the  latter,  to  go 
back  and  run  the  mind  over  the  string  of  historical  15 
facts  already  stated.  Several  things  will  now  appear 
less  dark  and  mysterious  than  they  did  when  they 
were  transpiring.  The  people  were  to  be  left  ''  per- 
fectly free,"  "  subject  only  to  the  Constitution." 
What  the  Constitution  had  to  do  with  it,  outsiders  20 
could  not  then  see.  Plainly  enough  now,  it  was 
an  exactly  fitted  niche,  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision 
to  afterward  come  in,  and  declare  the  perfect 
freedom  of  the  people  to  be  just  no  freedom 
at  all.  Why  was  the  amendment,  expressly  de-  25 
daring  the  right  of  the  people,  voted  down? 
Plainly  enough  now, — the  adoption  of  it  would  have 
spoiled  the  niche  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Why 
was  the  court  decision  held  up?  Why  even  a  Sen- 
ator's individual  opinion  withheld,  till  after  the 
Presidential    election?     Plainly    enough    now:    the  ^^ 


8  LINCOLN'S  SPRINGFIELD   SPEECH 

speaking  out  then  would  have  damag-ed  the  perfectly 
free  argument  upon  which  the  election  was  to  be 
carried.  Why  the  outgoing  President's  felicitation 
on  the  indorsement?  Why  the  delay  of  a  re-argu- 
5  ment?  W^hy  the  incoming  President's  advance 
exhortation  in  favor  of  the  decision  ?  These  things 
look  like  the  cautious  patting  and  petting  of  a 
spirited  horse  preparatory  to  mounting  him,  when  it 
is  dreaded  that  he  may  give  the  rider  a  fall.     And 

lo  why  the  hasty  after-indorsement  of  the  decision  by 
the  President  and  others? 

We  cannot  absolutely  know  that  all  these  adapta- 
tions are  the  result  of  preconcert.  But  when  we 
see  a  lot  of  framed  timbers,  different  portions  of 

15  which  we  know  have  been  gotten  out  at  different 
times  and  places  and  by  different  workmen, 
— Stephen,  Franklin,  Roger  and  James,  for 
instance — and  when  we  see  these  timbers  joined 
together,  and  see  they  exactly  make  the  frame  of  a 

20  house  or  a  mill,  all  the  tenons  and  mortises  exactly 
fitting,  and  all  the  lengths  and  proportions  of  the 
dift'erent  pieces  exactly  adapted  to  their  respective 
places,  and  not  a  piece  too  many  or  too  few, — not 
omitting  even  scaffolding, — or,  if  a  single  piece  be 

25  lacking,  we  see  the  place  in  the  frame  exactly  fitted 
and  prepared  yet  to  bring  such  piece  in — in  such 
a  case,  we  find  it  impossible  not  to  beheve  that 
Stephen  and  Franklin  and  Roger  and  James  all 
understood   one  another   from   the   beginning,   and 

30  all  worked  upon  a  common  plan  or  draft  drawn  up 
before  the  first  blow  was  struck. 


LINCOLN'S   SPRINCi-lLiLD   SPEECH  9 

It  should  not  be  overlooked  that  by  the  Nebraska 
bill  the  people  of  a  State  as  well  as  Territory  were 
to  be  left  "  perfectly  free,"  "  subject  only  to  the  Con- 
stitution." Why  mention  a  State?  They  were 
legislating-  for  Territories,  and  not  for  or  about  5 
States.  Certainly  the  people  of  a  State  are  and 
ought  to  be  subject  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States ;  but  why  is  mention  of  this  lugged  into  this 
merely  Territorial  law  ?  Why  are  the  people  of  a 
Territory  and  the  people  of  a  State  therein  lumped  10 
together,  and  their  relation  to  the  Constitution 
therein  treated  as  being  precisely  the  same  ?  While 
the  opinion  of  the  court,  by  Chief  Justice  Taney,  in 
the  Dred  Scott  case,  and  the  separate  opinions  of 
all  the  concurring  Judges,  expressly  declare  that  the  15 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  neither  permits 
Congress  nor  a  Territorial  Legislature  to  exclude 
slaver}'  from  any  United  States  Territory,  they  all 
omit  to  declare  whether  or  not  the  same  Constitution 
permits  a  State,  or  the  people  of  a  State,  to  exclude  20 
it.  Possibly,  this  is  a  mere  omission ;  but  who  can 
be  quite  sure,  if  McLean  or  Curtis  had  sought  to  get 
into  the  opinion  a  declaration  of  unlimited  power  in 
the  people  of  a  State  to  exclude  slavery  from  their 
limits,  just  as  Chase  and  Mace  sought  to  get  sucii  25 
declaration,  in  behalf  of  the  people  of  a  Territory, 
into  the  Nebraska  bill. — I  ask,  who  can  be  quite  sure 
that  it  would  not  have  been  voted  down  in  the  one 
case  as  it  had  been  in  the  other?  The  nearest 
approach  to  the  point  of  declaring  the  jxnvcr  of  a  3<j 
State  over  slavery,  is  made  by  Judge  Nelson,     lie 


10  LINCOLN'S  SPRINGFIELD   SPEECH 

approaches  it  more  than  once,  using  the  precise  idea, 
and  almost  the  language,  too,  of  the  Nebraska  Act. 
On  one  occasion,  his  exact  language  is,  "  Except  in 
cases  where  the  power  is  restrained  by  the  Constitu- 
5  tion  of  the  United  States,  the  law  of  the  State  is 
supreme  over  the  subject  of  slavery  within  its  juris- 
diction." In  what  cases  the  power  of  the  States  is  so 
restrained  by  the  United  States  Constitution,  is  left 
an  open  question,  precisely  as  the  same  question,  as 

JO  to  the  restraint  on  the  power  of  the  Territories,  was 
left  open  in  the  Nebraska  Act.  Put  this  and  that 
together,  and  we  have  another  nice  little  niche, 
which  we  may,  ere  long,  see  filled  with  another 
Supreme  Court  decision,  declaring  that  the  Constitu- 

15  tion  of  the  United  States  does  not  permit  a  State  to 
exclude  slavery  from  its  limits.  And  this  may 
especially  be  expected  if  the  doctrine  of  "  care  not 
whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted  up  "  shall 
gain  upon  the  public  mind  sujfficiently  to  give  prom- 

20  ise  that  such  a  decision  can  be  maintained  when 
made. 

Such  a  decision  is  all  that  slavery  now  lacks  of 
being  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States.  Welcome  or 
unwelcome,  such  decision  is  probably  coming,  and 

^5  will  soon  be  upon  us,  unless  the  power  of  the  present 
political  dynasty  shall  be  met  and  overthrown.  We 
shall  lie  down  pleasantly  dreaming  that  the  people  of 
Missouri  are  on  the  verge  of  making  their  State  free, 
and  we  shall  awake  to  the  reality  instead  that  the 

30  Supreme  Court  has  made  Illinois  a  slave  State.  To 
rneet  and  overthrow  the  power  of  that  dynasty  is  the 


LINCOLN'S   SPRINGFIELD   SPEECH  ii 

work  iiuw  before  all  those  who  would  prevent  that 
consummation.  That  is  what  we  have  to  do.  How 
can  we  best  do  it  ? 

There  are  those  who  denounce  us  openly  to  their 
own  friends,  and  yet  whisper  us  softly  that  Senator     5 
Doui^las  is  the  aptest  instrument  there  is  with  which 
to  effect  that  object.     They   wish  us  to  ijifcr  all, 
from  the  fact  that  he  now  has  a  little  quarrel  with 
the  i)resent  head  of  the  dynasty,  and  that  he  has  rep^- 
ularly  voted  with  us  on  a  sinc^le  point,  upon  which    ^o 
he  and  we  have  never  differed.     They  remind  us 
that  he  is  a  g^reat  man,  and  that  the  largest  of  us 
arc  very  small  ones.     Let  this  be  granted.     But  "  a 
living    dog   is   better   than   a    dead    lion."      Judge 
Douglas,  if  not  a  dead  lion,  for  this  work  is  at  least   15 
a  caged  and  toothless  one.    How  can  he  oppose  the 
advances  of  slavery?     He  don't  care  anything  about 
it.     His  avowed  mission  is  impressing  the  "  public 
heart  "  to  care  nothing  about  it.     A  leading  Douglas 
Democratic     newspaper     thinks     that     Douglas's   20 
superior  talent  will  be  needed  to  resist  the  revival  of 
the  African  slave  trade.     Does  Douglas  believe  an 
effort  to  revive  that  trade  is  approaching?     He  has 
not  said  so.     Does  he  really  think  so?     P>ut  if  it  is, 
how  can  he  resist  it?  For  years  he  has  labored  to   25 
prove  it  a  sacred  right  of  white  men  to  take  negro 
slaves  into  the  new   Territories.     Can   he   possibly 
show  that  it  is  less  a  sacred  right  to  buy  them  where 
they  can  be  bought  cheapest?     And  uncpiestionably 
they  can  be  bought  cheaper  in  Africa  than  in  \'ir-   3° 
ginia.     He  has  done  all  in  his  power  to  reduce  the 


12  LINCOLN'S  SPRINGFIELD   SPEECH 

whole  question  of  slavery  to  one  of  a  mere  right  of 
property ;  and,  as  such,  how  can  he  oppose  the  for- 
eign slave  trade, — how  can  he  refuse  that  trade  in 
that  "  property  "  shall  be  "  perfectly  free," — unless 
5  he  does  it  as  a  protection  to  the  home  production? 
And  as  the  home  producers  will  probably  not  ask 
the  protection,  he  will  be  wholly  without  a  ground 
of  opposition. 

Senator  Douglas  holds,  we  know,  that  a  man  may 

lo  rightfully  be  wiser  to-day  than  he  was  yesterday ; 
that  he  may  rightfully  change  when  he  finds  himself 
wrong.  But  can  we,  for  that  reason,  run  ahead,  and 
infer  that  he  will  make  any  particular  change,  of 
which  he  himself  has  given  no  intimation  ?     Can  we 

15  safely  base  our  action  upon  any  such  vague  infer- 
ence? Now,  as  ever,  I  wish  not  to  misrepresent 
Judge  Douglas's  position,  question  his  motives,  or 
do  aught  that  can  be  personally  offensive  to  him. 
•Whenever,  if  ever,  he  and  we  can  come  together  on 

20  principle  so  that  our  cause  may  have  assistance  from 
his  great  ability,  I  hope  to  have  interposed  no  adven- 
titious obstacle.  But  clearly  he  is  not  now  with  us ; 
he  does  not  pretend  to  be, — he  does  not  promise 
ever  to  be. 

25  Our  cause,  then,  must  be  intrusted  to,  and  con- 
ducted by,  its  own  undoubted  friends, — those  whose 
hands  are  free,  whose  hearts  are  in  the  work,  who 
do  care  for  the  result.  Two  years  ago  the  Repub- 
licans of  the  nation  mustered  over  thirteen  hundred 

30  thousand  strong.  We  did  this  under  the  single 
impulse  of   resistance  to  a  common  danger,   with 


LIXCOLX'S  SPRIXGPIELD  SPEECH  13 

every  external  circumstance  against  us.  Of  strange, 
discordant,  and  even  hostile  elements  we  gathered 
from  the  four  winds,  and  formed  and  fought  the 
battle  through,  under  the  constant  hot  fire  of  a 
disciplined,  proud,  and  pampered  enemy.  Did  we  5 
brave  all  then,  to  falter  now, — now,  when  that  same 
enemy  is  wavering,  dissevered,  and  belligerent? 
The  result  is  not  doubtful.  Wc  shall  not  fail;  if  we 
stand  firm,  we  shall  not  fail.  Wise  counsels  may 
accelerate,  or  mistakes  delay  it,  but,  sooner  or  later,  ^^ 
the  victory  is  sure  to  come. 


Second  5oint  Debate,  at  ftecpovt 

[August  27,  1858] 
MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH 

Ladies     and     Gentlemen  :     On  Saturday  last, 

5  Judge  Douglas  and  myself  first  met  in  public  dis- 
cussion. He  spoke  one  hour,  I  an  hour  and  a  half, 
and  he  replied  for  half  an  hour.  The  order  is  now 
reversed.  I  am  to  speak  an  hour,  he  an  hour  and  a 
half,  and  then  I  am  to  reply  for  half  an  hour.     I  pro- 

^^  pose  to  devote  myself  during  the  first  hour  to  the 
scope  of  what  was  brought  within  the  range  of  his 
half-hour  speech  at  Ottawa.  Of  course  there  was 
brought  within  the  scope  in  that  half-hour's  speech 
something   of   his    own   opening   speech.       In   the 

^5  course  of  that  opening  argument  Judge  Douglas 
proposed  to  me  seven  distinct  interrogatories.  In 
my  speech  of  an  hour  and  a  half,  I  attended  to  some 
other  parts  of  his  speech,  and  incidentally,  as  I 
thought,  answered  one  of  the  interrogatories  then. 

^°  1  then  distinctly  intimated  to  him  that  I  would 
answer  the  rest  of  his  interrogatories  on  condition 
only  that  he  should  agree  to  answer  as  many  for  me. 
He  made  no  intimation  at  the  time  of  the  proposi- 
tion, nor  did  he  in  his  reply  allude  at  all  to  that  sug- 

^5  gestion  of  mine.     I  do  him  no  injustice  in  saying 

14 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  SPEECH  15 

that  he  occupied  at  least  half  of  his  reply  in  dealing 
with  me  as  though  I  had  refused  to  answer  his  inter- 
rogatories. I  now  propose  that  I  will  answer  any 
of  the  interrogatories,  upon  condition  that  he  will 
answer  questions  from  me  not  exceeding  the  same  5 
number.  I  give  him  an  opportunity  to  respond. 
The  Judge  remains  silent.  I  now  say  that  I  will 
answer  his  interrogatories,  whether  he  answers  mine 
or  not;  and  that  after  I  have  done  so,  I  shall  pro- 
pound mine  to  him.  ^° 

I  have  supposed  myself,  since  the  organization  of 
the  Republican  party  at  Bloomnigton,  in  May,  1856, 
bound  as  a  party  man  by  the  platforms  of  the  party, 
then  and  since.  If  in  any  interrogatories  which  I 
shall  answer  I  go  beyond  the  scope  of  what  is  15 
within  these  platforms,  it  will  be  perceived  that  no 
one  is  responsible  but  myself. 

Having  said  thus  much,  I  will  take  up  the  Judge's 
interrogatories  as  I  find  them  printed  in  the  Chicago 
''  Times,"  and  answer  them  seriatim.  In  order  that  20 
there  may  be  no  mistake  about  it,  I  have  copied  the 
interrogatories  in  writing,  and  also  my  answers  to 
them.  The  first  one  of  these  interrogatories  is  in 
these  words : — 

Question  1. — "  I  desire  to  know  whether  Lincoln  25 
to-day  stands,  as  he  did  in   1854,  in  favor  of  the 
unconditional  repeal  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  ?  " 

Auszver. — I  do  not  now,  nor  ever  did,  stand  in 
favor  of  the  unconditional  repeal  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  law\  ^^ 

Q.  2.     *'  I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  stands 


i6  JOINT  DEBATE   AT  FREEPORT 

pledged  to-day,  as  he  did  in  1854.  against  the  admis- 
sion of  any  more  Slave  States  into  the  Union,  even 
if  the  people  want  them  ?  " 

A.     I  do  not  noWj  nor  ever  did,  stand  pledged 
5  against  the  admission  of  any  more  Slave  States  into 
the  Union. 

Q.     3.     "  I   want   to   know   whether   he   stands 
pledged  against  the  admission  of  a  new  State  into 
the  Union  with  such  a  Constitution  as  the  people  of 
^°  that  State  may  see  fit  to  make  ?" 

A,  I  do  not  stand  pledged  against  the  admission 
of  a  new  State  into  the  Union,  with  such  a  Con- 
stitution as  the  people  of  that  State  may  see  fit  to 
make. 
15  Q.  4.  "  I  want  to  know  whether  he  stands 
to-day  pledged  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia  ?  " 

A.  I  do  not  stand  to-day  pledged  to  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
^°       Q'  5-  ''  I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  stands 
pledged  to  the  prohibition  of  the  slave-trade  between 
the  different  States  ?  " 

A.     I  do  not  stand  pledged  to  the  prohibition  of 
the  slave-trade  between  the  different  States. 
25       Q.  6.      **  I    desire   to   know   whether   he    stands 
pledged  to  prohibit   slavery  in  all   the  Territories 
of  the  United  States,  north  as  well  as  south  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise  line?" 
A.   I  am  impliedly,  if  not  expressly,  pledged  to  a 
30  belief  in  the  right  and  duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  all  the  United  States  Territories. 


MR.   LIXCOLN'S  SPEECH  17 

Q.  7.  "  I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  is 
opposed  to  the  acquisition  of  any  new  territory  un- 
less slavery  is  first  prohibited  therein  ?  " 

A.    I  am  not  generally  opposed  to  honest  acquisi- 
tion of  territory ;  and,  in  any  given  case,  I  would  or    5 
would  not  oppose  such  acquisition,  accordingly  as 
I  might  think  such  acquisition  would  or  would  not 
aggravate  the  slavery  question  among  ourselves. 

Now,  my  friends,  it  will  be  perceived,  upon  an 
examination  of  these  questions  and  answers,  that  so  10 
far  I  have  only  answered  that  I  was  not  pledged  to 
this,  that,  or  the  other.  The  Judge  has  not  framed 
his  interrogatories  to  ask  me  anything  more  than 
this,  and  I  have  answered  in  strict  accordance  with 
the  interrogatories,  and  have  answered  truly,  that  15 
I  am  not  pledged  at  all  upon  any  of  the  points  to 
which  I  have  answered.  lUit  I  am  not  disposed  to 
hang  upon  the  exact  form  of  his  interrogatory.  I 
am  rather  disposed  to  take  up  at  least  some  of  these 
questions,  and  state  what  I  really  think  upon  them.  20 

As  to  the  first  one,  in  regard  to  the  Fugitive 
Slave  law,  I  have  never  hesitated  to  say,  and  I  do  not 
now  hesitate  to  say,  that  I  think,  under  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States  arc  entitled  to  a  Congressional  Fugitive  25 
Slave  law.  Having  said  that,  I  have  had  nothing  to 
say  in  regard  to  the  existing  Fugitive  Slave  law, 
further  than  that  I  think  it  should  have  been  framed 
so  as  to  be  free  from  some  of  the  objections  that 
pertain  to  it,  without  lessening  its  efficiency.  And  30 
inasmuch  as  we  are  not  now  in  an  agitation  in  re- 


i8  JOINT   DEBATE   AT  FREEPORT 

gard  to  an  alteration  or  modification  of  that  law,  I 
would  not  be  the  man  to  introduce  it  as  a  new  sub- 
ject of  agitation  upon  the  general  question  of 
slavery. 

5  In  regard  to  the  other  question,  of  whether  I  am 
pledged  to  the  admission  of  any  more  Slave  States 
into  the  Union,  I  state  to  you  very  frankly  that  I 
w^ould  be  exceedingly  sorry  ever  to  be  put  in  a  posi- 
tion of  having  to  pass  upon  that  question.  I  should  be 

lo  exceedingly  glad  to  know  that  there  would  never  be 
another  Slave  State  admitted  into  the  Union;  but  I 
must  add  that  if  slavery  shall  be  kept  out  of  the  Ter- 
ritories during  the  territorial  existence  of  any  one 
given  Territory,  and  then  the  people  shall,  having 

15  a  fair  chance  and  a  clear  field,  when  they  come  to 
adopt  the  constitution,  do  such  an  extraordinary 
thing  as  to  adopt  a  slave  constitution,  uninfluenced 
by  the  actual  presence  of  the  institution  among  them, 
I  see  no  alternative,  if  we  own  the  country,  but  to 

20  admit  them  into  the  Union. 

The  third  interrogatory  is  answered  by  the  an- 
swer to  the  second,  it  being,  as  I  conceive,  the  same 
as  the  second. 

The  fourth  one  is  in  regard  to  the  abolition  of 

25  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  In  relation  to 
that,  I  have  my  mind  very  distinctly  made  up.  I 
should  be  exceedingly  glad  to  see  slavery  abolished 
in  the  District  of  Columbia.  I  believe  that  Congress 
possesses    the    constitutional   power   to    abolish    it. 

30  Yet  as  a  member  of  Congress,  I  should  not,  with 
my  present  views,  be  in  favor  of  endeavoring  to 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  SPEECH  19 

abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  unless 
it  would  be  upon  these  conditions:  First,  that  the 
abolition  should  be  gradual;  second,  that  it  should 
be  on  a  vote  of  the  majority  of  qualified  voters  in 
the  District;  and  third,  that  comi:)cnsation  should  be  5 
made  to  unwilling  owners.  With  these  three  condi- 
tions, I  confess  I  would  be  exceedingly  glad  to  see 
Congress  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
and,  in  the  language  of  Henry  Clay,  "  sweep  from 
our  capital  that  foul  blot  upon  our  nation."  ^° 

In  regard  to  the  fifth  interrogatory,  I  must  say 
here,  that  as  to  the  question  of  the  abolition  of  the 
slave-trade  between  the  different  States,  I  can  truly 
answer,  as  I  have,  that  I  am  pledged  to  nothing 
about  it.  It  is  a  subject  to  which  I  have  not  given  15 
that  mature  consideration  that  would  make  me  feel 
authorized  to  state  a  position  so  as  to  hold  myself  en- 
tirely bound  by  it.  In  other  words,  that  question 
has  never  been  prominently  enough  before  me  to 
induce  me  to  investigate  whether  we  really  have  the  20 
constitutional  power  to  do  it.  I  could  investigate  it  if 
I  had  sufficient  time  to  bring  myself  to  a  conclusion 
upon  that  subject;  but  I  have  not  done  so,  and  I  say 
so  frankly  to  you  here,  and  to  Judge  Douglas.  I 
must  say,  however,  that  if  I  should  be  of  opinion  that  25 
Congress  does  possess  the  constitutional  power  to 
abolish  the  slave-trade  among  the  different  States, 
I  should  still  not  be  in  favor  of  the  exercise  of  that 
power,  unless  upon  some  conservative  principle  as  I 
conceive  it,  akin  to  what  I  have  said  in  relation  to  30 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 


20  JOINT  DEBATE  AT  FREEPORT 

My  answer  as  to  whether  I  desire  that  slavery 
should  be  prohibited  in  all  the  Territories  of  the 
United  States,  is  full  and  explicit  within  itself,  and 
cannot  be  made  clearer  by  any  comments  of  mine. 

5  So  I  suppose  in  regard  to  the  question  whether  I 
am  opposed  to  the  acquisition  of  any  more  territory 
unless  slavery  is  first  prohibited  therein,  my  answer 
is  such  that  I  could  add  nothing  by  way  of  illustra- 
tion, or  making  myself  better  understood,  than  the 

lo   answer  which  I  have  placed  in  writing. 

Now  in  all  this  the  Judge  has  me,  and  he  has  me 
on  the  record.  I  suppose  he  had  flattered  himself 
that  I  was  really  entertaining  one  set  of  opinions 
for  one  place,  and  another  set  for  another  place; 

15  that  I  was  afraid  to  say  at  one  place  what  I  uttered 
at  another.  What  I  am  saying  here  I  suppose  I  say 
to  a  vast  audience  as  strongly  tending  to  Abolition- 
ism as  any  audience  in  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  I 
believe  I  am  saying  that  which,  if  it  would  be  offen- 

20   sive  to  any  persons  and  render  them  enemies  to  my- 
self, would  be  offensive  to  persons  in  this  audience. 
I  now  proceed  to  propound  to  the  Judge  the  inter- 
rogatories, so  far  as  I  have  framed  them.     I  will 
bring  forward  a  new  instalment  when  I  get  them 

25   ready.     I  will  bring  them  forward  now,  only  reach- 
ing to  number  four. 
The  first  one  is : — 

Question  i.  If  the  people  of  Kansas  shall,  by 
means  entirely  unobjectionable  in  all  other  respects, 

30  adopt  a  State  constitution,  and  ask  admission  into 
the  Union  under  it,  before  they  have  the  requisite 


MR.   LIXCOLN'S   SPEECH  21 

number  of  inhabitants  according  to  the  English  bill, 
— some   ninety-three   thousand, — will   you   vote   to 

admit  them  ? 

Q.  2.     Can  the  people  of  a  United  States  Terri- 
tory, in  any  lawful  way,  against  the  wish  of  any     5 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  from 
its  limits  prior  to  the  fomiation  of  a  State  consti- 
tution ? 

Q.  3.     If  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
shall  decide  that  States  cannot  exclude  slavery  from  10 
their  limits,   are   you   in   favor  of  acquiescing  in, 
adopting,  and  following  such  decision  as  a  rule  of 
political  action? 

Q.  4.    Are  you  in  favor  of  acquiring  additional 
territory,  in  disregard  of  how  such  acquisition  may  15 
affect  the  nation  on  the  slavery  question  ? 

As   introductory  to   these   interrogatories   which 
Judge  Douglas  propounded  to  me  at  Ottawa,  he  read 
a  set  of  resolutions  which  he  said  Judge  Trumbull 
and  myself  had  participated  in  adopting,  in  the  first  20 
Republican   State   Convention,   held   at   Springfield 
in  October,   1854.     He  insisted  that   I  and  Judge 
Trumbull,  and  perhaps  the  entire  Republican  party, 
were  responsible  for  the  doctrines  contained  in  the 
set  of  resolutions  which  he  read,  and  I  understand  25 
that  it  was  from  that  set  of  resolutions  that  he  de- 
duced the  interrogatories  which  he  propounded  to 
me,  using  these  resolutions  as  a  sort  of  authority  for 
propounding  those  questions  to  me.  Now,  I  say  here 
to-day  that  I  do  not  answer  his  interrogatories  be-  30 
cause  of  their  springing  at  all  from  that  set  of  resolu- 


22  JOIXT  DEBATE   AT  FREEPORT 

tions  which  he  read.  I  answered  them  because  Judge 
Douglas  thought  fit  to  ask  them.  I  do  not  now,  nor 
ever  did,  recognize  any  responsibiHty  upon  myself 
in  that  set  of  resolutions.  When  I  replied  to  him  on 
5  that  occasion,  I  assured  him  that  I  never  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  them.  I  repeat  here  to-day  that  I 
never  in  any  possible  form  had  anything  to  do  with 
that  set  of  resolutions.  It  turns  out,  I  believe,  that 
those  resolutions  were  never  passed  in  any  conven- 

^°  tion  held  in  Springfield.  It  turns  out  that  they  were 
never  passed  at  any  convention  or  any  public  meet- 
ing that  I  had  any  part  in.  I  believe  it  turns  out,  in 
addition  to  all  this,  that  there  was  not,  in  the  fall  of 
1854,  any  convention  holding  a  session  in  Spring- 

^5  field,  calling  itself  a  Republican  State  Convention; 
yet  it  is  true  there  was  a  convention,  or  assemblage  of 
men  calling  themselves  a  convention,  at  Springfield, 
that  did  pass  some  resolutions.  But  so  little  did  I 
really  know  of  the  proceedings  of  that  convention, 

20  or  what  set  of  resolutions  they  had  passed,  though 
having  a  general  knowledge  that  there  had  been  an 
assemblage  of  men  there,  that  when  Judge  Douglas 
read  the  resolutions,  I  really  did  not  know  but  they 
had  been  the  resolutions  passed  then  and  there.     I 

^5  did  not  question  that  they  were  the  resolutions 
adopted.  For  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  suppose 
that  Judge  Douglas  could  say  what  he  did  upon  this 
subject  without  knounng  that  it  was  true.  I  con- 
tented myself,  on  that  occasion,  with  denying,  as  I 

30  truly  could,  all  connection  with  them,  not  denying 
or  affirming  whether  they  were  passed  at  Springfield. 


MR.  LINCOLN'S  SPEECH  23 

Now,  it  turns  out  that  lie  had  got  hold  of  some  reso- 
lutions passed  at  some  convention  or  public  meeting 
in  Kane  County.  I  wish  to  say  here,  that  I  don't 
conceive  that  in  any  fair  and  just  mind  this  dis- 
covery relieves  me  at  all.  I  had  just  as  much  to  do  5 
with  the  convention  in  Kane  County  as  that  at 
Springfield.  I  am  just  as  much  responsible  for  the 
resolutions  at  Kane  County  as  those  at  Springfield, 
— the  amount  of  the  responsibility  being  exactly 
nothing  in  either  case ;  no  more  than  there  would  10 
be  in  regard  to  a  set  of  resolutions  passed  in  the 
moon. 

I  allude  to  this  extraordinary  matter  in  this  can- 
vass for  some  further  purpose  than  anything  yet 
advanced.    Judge  Douglas  did  not  make  his  state-   15 
ment  upon  that  occasion  as  matters  that  he  believed 
to  be  true,  but  he  stated  them  roundly  as  being  true, 
in  such  form  as  to  pledge  his  veracity  for  their  truth. 
When  the  whole  matter  turns  out  as  it  does,  and 
when  we  consider  who  Judge  Douglas  is, — that  he  20 
is  a   distinguished   Senator  of  the  United   States ; 
that  he  has  served  nearly  twelve  years  as   such; 
that  his  character  is  not  at  all  limited  as  an  ordinary 
Senator   of  the   United  States,   but   that   his   name 
has    become    of    world-wide    renown, — it    is    Diost  25 
extraordinary    that    he    should    so    far    forget    all 
the  suggestions  of  justice  to  an  adversary,  or  of  pru- 
dence to  himself,  as  to  venture  upon  the  assertion  of 
that   which  the  slightest  investigation   would  have 
shown  hini  to  be  wholly  false.     I  can  only  account  3^* 
for  his  having  done  so  upon  the  supposition  that 


24  JOINT   DEBATE   AT  FREEPORT 

that  evil  genius  which  has  attended  him  through 
his  hfe,  giving  to  him  an  apparent  astonishing  pros- 
perity, such  as  to  lead  very  many  good  men  to  doubt 
there  being  any  advantage  in  virtue  over  vice, — I 
5  say  I  can  only  account  for  it  on  the  supposition  that 
that  evil  genius  has  at  last  made  up  its  mind  to  for- 
sake him. 

And  I  may  add  that  another  extraordinary  feature 
of  the  Judge's  conduct  in  this  canvass — made  more 

lo  extraordinary  by  this  incident — is,  that  he  is  in  the 
habit,  in  almost  all  the  speeches  he  makes,  of  charg- 
ing falsehood  upon  his  adversaries,  myself  and 
others.  I  now  ask  whether  he  is  able  to  find  in  any- 
thing that  Judge  Trumbull,  for  instance,  has  said, 

15  or  in  anything  that  I  have  said,  a  justification  at  all 
compared  with  what  we  have,  in  this  instance,  for 
that  sort  of  vulgarity. 

I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  charging  as  a  matter 
of  belief  on  my  part  that,  in  the  introduction  of  the 

20  Nebraska  bill  into  Congress,  there  was  a  conspiracy 
to  make  slavery  perpetual  and  national.  I  have  ar- 
ranged from  time  to  time  the  evidence  which  estab- 
lishes and  proves  the  truth  of  this  charge.  I  re- 
curred to  this  charge  at  Ottawa.     I  shall  not  now 

25  have  time  to  dwell  upon  it  at  very  great  length ;  but 
inasmuch  as  Judge  Douglas,  in  his  reply  of  half  an 
hour,  made  some  points  upon  me  in  relation  to  it,  I 
propose  noticing  a  few  of  them. 

The  Judge  insists  that,  in  the  first  speech  I  made, 

30  in  w^hich  I  very  distinctly  made  that  charge,  he 
thought  for  a  good  w^hile  I  was  in  fun!  that  I  was 


MR.   LINCOLN'S   SPEECH  25 

playful ;  that  I  was  not  sincere  about  it ;  and  that 
he  only  grew  angry  and  somewhat  excited  when  he 
found  that  I  insisted  upon  it  as  a  matter  of  earnest- 
ness. He  says  he  characterized  it  as  a  falsehood  so 
far  as  I  implicated  his  moral  character  in  that  trans-  5 
action.  Well,  I  did  not  know,  till  he  presented  that 
view,  that  I  had  implicated  his  moral  character.  He 
is  very  much  in  the  habit,  when  he  argues  me  up 
into  a  position  I  never  thought  of  occupying,  of  10 
very  cosily  saying  he  has  no  doubt  Lincoln  is  "  con- 
scientious "  in  saying  so.  He  should  remember  that 
I  did  not  know  but  what  he  was  altogether  "  con- 
scientious "  in  that  matter.  I  can  conceive  it  pos- 
sible for  men  to  conspire  to  do  a  good  thing,  and  I  15 
really  find  nothing  in  Judge  Douglas's  course  or 
arguments  that  is  contrary  to  or  inconsistent  with 
his  belief  of  a  conspiracy  to  nationalize  and  spread 
slavery  as  being  a  good  and  blessed  thing;  and  so 
I  hope  he  will  understand  that  I  do  not  at  all  ques-  20 
tion  but  that  in  all  this  matter  he  is  entirely  "  con- 
scientious." 

But  to  draw  your  attention  to  one  of  the  points 
I  made  in  this  case,  beginning  at  the  beginning. 
When  the  Nebraska  bill  was  introduced,  or  a  short  25 
time  afterward,  by  an  amendment,  I  believe,  it  was 
provided  that  it  must  be  considered  "  the  true  intent 
and  meaning  of  this  Act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into 
any  State  or  Territory,  or  to  exclude  it  therefrom, 
but  to  leave  the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  30 
form  and  regulate  their  own  domestic  institutions  in 
their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of 


26  JOIXT  DEBATE   AT  FREEPORT 

the  United  States."  I  have  called  his  attention  to 
the  fact  that  when  he  and  some  others  began  arguing 
that  they  were  giving  an  increased  degree  of  liberty 
to  the  people  in  the  Territories  over  and  above  what 
5  they  formerly  had  on  the  question  of  slavery,  a 
question  was  raised  whether  the  law  was  enacted 
to  give  such  unconditional  liberty  to  the  people ;  and 
to  test  the  sincerity  of  this  mode  of  argument,  Mr. 
Chase,  of  Ohio,  introduced  an  amendment,  in  which 

lo  he  made  the  law — if  the  amendment  were  adopted — 
expressly  declare  that  the  people  of  the  Territory- 
should  have  the  power  to  exclude  slaver>^  if  they 
saw  fit.  I  have  asked  attention  also  to  the  fact  that 
Judge  Douglas  and  those  who  acted  with  him  voted 

15  that  amendment  down,  notwithstanding  it  expressed 
exactly  the  thing  they  said  was  the  true  intent  and 
meaning  of  the  law.  I  have  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  in  subsequent  times  a  decision  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  has  been  made,  in  which  it  has  been 

20  declared  that  a  Territorial  Legislature  has  no  con- 
stitutional right  to  exclude  slavery.  And  I  have 
argued  and  said  that  for  men  who  did  intend  that 
the  people  of  the  Territory  should  have  the  right  to 
exclude  slavery  absolutely  and  unconditionally,  the 

25  voting  down  of  Chase's  amendment  is  wholly  inex- 
plicable. It  is  a  puzzle,  a  riddle.  But  I  have  said, 
that  with  men  who  did  look  forward  to  such  a  de- 
cision, or  who  had  it  in  contemplation  that  such  a 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  would  or  might  be 

30  made,  the  voting  down  of  that  amendment  would  be 
perfectly  rational  and  intelligible.     It  would  keep 


MR.   LIXCOLK'S   SPEECH  27 

Con.s^ress  from  comings  in  collision  with  the  decision 
when  it  was  made.  Anybody  can  conceive  that  if 
there  was  an  intention  or  expectation  that  such  a 
decision  was  to  follow,  it  would  not  be  a  very  desir- 
able party  attitude  to  get  into  for  the  Supreme  Court  5 
— all  or  nearly  all  its  members  belonging  to  the  same 
party — to  decide  one  way,  when  the  party  in  Con- 
gress had  decided  the  other  way.  Hence  it  would 
be  ven-  rational  for  men  expecting  such  a  decision 
to  keep  the  niche  in  that  law  clear  for  it.  After  10 
pointing  this  out  I  tell  Judge  Douglas  that  it  looks 
to  me  as  though  here  was  the  reason  why  Chase's 
amendment  was  voted  down.  I  tell  him  that,  as  he 
did  it,  and  knows  why  he  did  it,  if  it  was  done  for 
a  reason  different  from  this,  he  knows  what  that  rca-  15 
son  zcas,  and  can  tell  us  what  it  zcas.  I  tell  him,  also, 
it  will  be  vastly  more  satisfactory  to  the  country  for 
him  to  give  some  other  plausible,  intelligible  reason 
zi'hy  it  was  voted  down  than  to  stand  upon  his  dig- 
nity and  call  pecple  liars.  Well,  on  Saturday  he  did  20 
make  his  answer;  and  what  do  you  think  it  was? 
He  says  if  I  had  only  taken  upon  myself  to  tell  the 
whole  truth  about  that  amendment  of  Chase's,  no 
explanation  would  have  been  necessary  on  his  part — 
or  words  to  that  effect.  Now,  I  say  here  that  I  am  25 
quite  unconscious  of  having  suppressed  anything 
material  to  the  case,  and  I  am  very  frank  to  admit 
if  there  is  any  sound  reason  other  than  that  which 
appeared  to  me  material,  it  is  quite  fair  for  him  to 
present  it.  What  reason  does  he  propose?  That  30 
when  Chase  came  forward  with  his  amendment  ex- 


ag  JOINT  DEBATE   AT   FREEPORT 

pressly  authorizing  the  people  to  exclude  slavery 
from  the  limits  of  everv*  Territory,  General  Cass  pro- 
posed to  Chase,  if  he  (Chase)  would  add  to  his 
amendment  that  the  people  should  have  the  power 
5  to  introduce  or  exclude,  they  would  let  it  go.  This 
is  substantially  all  of  his  reply.  And  because  Chase 
would  not  do  that,  they  voted  his  amendment  down. 
Well,  it  turns  out,  I  believe,  upon  examination,  that 
General  Cass  took  some  part  in  the  little  rtmning 

lo  debate  upon  that  amendment,  and  then  ran  away  ayid 
did  not  vote  on  it  at  all.  Is  not  that  the  fact?  So 
confident,  as  I  think,  was  General  Cass  that  there 
was  a  snake  somewhere  about,  he  chose  to  run  away 
from  the  whole  thing.    This  is  an  inference  I  draw 

15  from  the  fact  that,  though  he  took  part  in  the  debate, 
his  name  does  not  appear  in  the  ayes  and  noes.  But 
does  Judge  Douglas's  reply  amount  to  a  satisfactory 
answer?  [Cries  of  "Yes,"  "Yes,"  and  "No,'" 
"  No."]     There  is  some  little  difference  of  opinion 

20  h-ere.  But  I  ask  attention  to  a  few  more  \'iews  bear- 
ing on  the  question  of  whether  it  amounts  to  a  satis- 
factory answer.  The  men  who  were  determined 
that  that  amendment  should  not  get  into  the  bill  and 
spoil  the  place  where  the  Dred  Scott  decision  was 

25  to  come  in,  sought  an  excuse  to  get  rid  of  it  some- 
where. One  of  these  ways — one  of  these  excuses — 
was  to  ask  Chase  to  add  to  his  proposed  amendm.ent 
a  provision  that  the  people  might  introduce  slavery 
if  they  wanted  to.  They  very  well  knew  Chase  would 

30  do  no  such  thing,  that  Mr.  Chase  was  one  of  the 
men  differing  from  them  on  the  broad  principle  of 


MR,  LIXCOUrS  SPEECH  ^ 

his  insisting  that  freedom  was  better  than  slavery, — 
a  man  who  would  not  consent  to  enact  a  law.  penned 
with  his  own  hand,  by  which  he  was  made  to  recog- 
nize slavery-  on  the  one  hand,  and  liberty  on  the 
other,  as  precisely  equal;  and  when  they  insisted  on  ; 
his  doing  this,  they  ver\-  well  knew  they  insisted  on 
that  which  he  would  not  for  a  moment  think  of 
doing,  and  that  they  were  only  bluffing  him.  I  be- 
lieve (I  have  not.  since  he  made  his  answer,  had  a 
chance  to  examine  the  journals  or  "  Congressional  lo 
Globe  "  and  therefore  speak  from  memor\-) — I  be- 
lieve the  state  of  the  bill  at  that  time,  according  to 
parliamentary-  rules,  was  such  that  no  member  could 
propose  an  additional  amendment  to  Chase's  amend- 
ment- I  rather  think  this  is  the  truth, — the  Judge  15 
shakes  his  head-  Very  welL  I  would  like  to  know, 
then,  if  they  Tvanted  Chase's  amendment  fixed  over, 
why  somebody  else  could  not  hofve  ottered  to  do  itf 
If  they  wanted  it  amended,  why  did  they  not  offer 
the  amendment?  Why  did  they  stand  there  taunt-  20 
ing  and  quibbling  at  Chase?  Why  did  they  not  put 
it  in  themselves  f  But  to  put  it  on  the  other  ground : 
suppose  that  there  was  such  an  amendment  offered. 
and  Chase's  was  an  amendment  to  an  amendment ; 
until  one  is  disposed  of  by  parliamentary-  law,  you  25 
cannot  pile  another  on.  Then  all  these  gentlemen 
had  to  do  was  to  vote  Chase's  on,  and  then,  in  the 
amended  form  in  which  the  whole  stood,  add  their 
own  amendment  to  it,  if  they  wanted  to  put  it  in 
that  shape.  This  was  all  they  were  obliged  to  do,  30 
and  the  ayes  and  noes  show  that  there  were  thirt>-- 


30  JOINT  DEBATE  AT  FREEPORT 

six  who  voted  it  down,  against  ten  who  voted  in 
favor  of  it.  The  thirty-six  held  entire  sway  and 
control.  They  could  in  some  form  or  other  have  put 
that  bill  in  the  exact  shape  they  wanted.  If  there 
5  was  a  rule  preventing  their  amending  it  at  the  time, 
they  could  pass  that,  and  then,  Chase's  amendment 
being  merged,  put  it  in  the  shape  they  wanted.  They 
did  not  choose  to  do  so,  but  they  went  into  a  quibble 
with  Chase  to  get  him  to  add  what  they  knew  he 

lo  would  not  add,  and  because  he  would  not,  they  stand 
upon  the  flimsy  pretext  for  voting  down  what  they 
argued  was  the  meaning  and  intent  of  their  own  bill. 
They  left  room  thereby  for  this  Dred  Scott  decision, 
which   goes    very    far    to    make    slavery    national 

15  throughout  the  United  States. 

I  pass  one  or  two  points  I  have,  because  my  time 
will  very  soon  expire ;  but  I  must  be  allowed  to  say 
that  Judge  Douglas  recurs  again,  as  he  did  upon  one 
or  two  other  occasions,  to  the  enormity  of  Lincoln, 

20  — an  insignificant  individual  like  Lincoln, — upon  his 
ipse  dixit  charging  a  conspiracy  upon  a  large  num- 
ber of  members  of  Congress,  the  Supreme  Court, 
and  two  Presidents,  to  nationalize  slavery.  I  want 
to  say  that,  in  the  first  place,  I  have  made  no  charge 

25  of  this  sort  upon  ipse  dixit.  I  have  only  arrayed 
the  evidence  tending  to  prove  it,  and  presented  it  to 
the  understanding  of  others,  saying  what  I  think  it 
proves,  but  giving  you  the  means  of  judging  whether 
it  proves  it  or  not.     This  is  precisely  what  I  have 

30  done.  I  have  not  placed  it  upon  my  ipse  dixit  at 
all.    On  this  occasion,  I  wish  to  recall  his  attention 


MR.  LINCOLN'S  SPEECH  31 

to  a  piece  of  evidence  which  I  brought  forward  at 
Ottawa  on  Saturday,  showing  that  he  had  made 
substantially  the  saiiic  charge  against  substantially 
the  same  persons,  excluding  his  dear  self  from  the 
category.  I  ask  him  to  give  some  attention  to  the  5 
evidence  which  I  brought  forward  that  he  himself 
had  discovered  a  "  fatal  blow  being  struck  "  against 
the  right  of  the  people  to  exclude  slavery  from  their 
limits,  which  fatal  blow  he  assumed  as  in  evidence 
in  an  article  in  the  Washington  *'  Union  "  published  10 
*'  by  authority."  I  ask  by  whose  authority  ?  He  dis- 
covers a  similar  or  identical  provision  in  the  Lecomp- 
ton  Constitution.  Made  by  whom  ?  The  f ramers  of 
that  Constitution.  Advocated  by  whom  ?  By  all  the 
members  of  the  party  in  the  nation,  who  advocated  15 
the  introduction  of  Kansas  into  the  Union  under  the 
Lecompton  Constitution. 

I  have  asked  his  attention  to  the  evidence  that  he 
arrayed  to  prove  that  such  a  fatal  blow  was  being 
struck,  and  to  the  facts  which  he  brought  forward  20 
in  support  of  that  charge, — being  identical  with  the 
one  which  he  thinks  so  villainous  in  me.  He  pointed 
it,  not  at  a  newspaper  editor  merely,  but  at  the  Pres- 
ident and  his  Cabinet  and  the  members  of  Congress 
advocating  the  Lecompton  Constitution  and  those  25 
framing  that  instrument.  I  must  again  be  permitted 
to  remind  him  that  although  my  ipse  dixit  may  not 
be  as  great  as  his,  yet  it  somewhat  reduces  the  force 
of  his  calling  my  attention  to  the  enormity  of  my 
making  a  like  charge  against  him.  30 

Go  on,  Judge  Douglas. 


32  JOINT  DEBATE    AT  FREEPORT 

MR.    DOUGLAS'S    REPLY 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  The  silence  with  which 
you  have  listened  to  Mr.  Lincoln  during  his  hour  is 
5  creditable  to  this  vast  audience,  composed  of  men 
of  various  political  parties.  Nothing  is  more  honor- 
able to  any  large  mass  of  people  assembled  for  the 
purpose  of  a  fair  discussion  than  that  kind  and  re- 
spectful attention  that  is  yielded,  not  only  to  your 

lo  political  friends,  but  to  those  who  are  opposed  to 
you  in  politics. 

I  am  glad  that  at  last  I  have  brought  Mr.  Lincoln 
to  the  conclusion  that  he  had  better  define  his  posi- 
tion on  certain  political  questions  to  which  I  called 

15  his  attention  at  Ottawa.  He  there  showed  no  dispo- 
sition, no  inclination,  to  answer  them.  I  did  not 
present  idle  questions  for  him  to  answer,  merely  for 
my  gratification.  I  laid  the  foundation  for  those  in- 
terrogatories by  showing  that  they  constituted  the 

20  platform  of  the  party  whose  nominee  he  is  for  the 
Senate.  I  did  not  presume  that  I  had  the  right  to 
catechise  him  as  I  saw  proper,  unless  I  showed  that 
his  party,  or  a  majority  of  it,  stood  upon  the  plat- 
form and  were  in  favor  of  the  propositions  upon 

25  which  my  questions  were  based.  I  desired  simply  to 
know,  inasmuch  as  he  had  been  nominated  as  the 
first,  last  and  only  choice  of  his  party,  whether  he 
concurred  in  the  platform  w^hich  that  party  had 
adopted  for  its  government.     In  a  few  minutes  I 

30  will  proceed  to  review  the  answers  which  he  has 
given  to  these  interrogatories;  but,  in  order  to  re- 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  REPLY  33 

lieve  his  anxiety,  I  will  first  respond  to  these  which 
he  has  presented  to  nie.  Mark  you,  he  has  not  pre- 
sented interrogatories  which  have  ever  received  the 
sanction  of  the  party  with  which  I  am  acting,  and 
hence  he  has  no  other  foundation  for  them  than  his  5 
own  curiosity. 

First,  he  desires  to  know  if  the  people  of  Kansas 
shall  form  a  constitution  by  means  entirely  proper 
and   unobjectionable,   and   ask   admission   into   the 
Union  as  a  State,  before  they*  have  the  requisite    10 
population  for  a  member  of  Congress,  whether  I 
will  vote  for  that  admission.     Well,  now,  I  regret 
exceedingly  that  he  did  not  answer  that  interroga- 
tory himself  before  he  put  it  to  me,  in  order  that 
we  might  understand,  and  not  be  left  to  infer,  on    15 
which  side*  he  is.     Mr.  Trumbull,  during  the  last 
session  of  Congress,  voted  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end  against  the  admission  of  Oregon,  although  a 
Free  State,  because  she  had  not  the  requisite  popula- 
tion  for  a   member   of   Congress.     Mr.   Trumbull    20 
would  not  consent,  under  any  circumstances,  to  let 
a  State,  free  or  slave,  come  into  the  Union  until  it 
had  the  requisite  population.     As  Mr.  Trumbull  is 
in  the  field,  fighting  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  would  like 
to  have  Mr.  Lincoln  answer  his  own  question,  and   25 
tell  me  whether   he   is  fighting  Trumbull  on  that 
issue  or  not.     But  I  will  answer  his  question.     In 
reference  to  Kansas,  it  is  my  opinion  that  as  she 
has  population  enough  to  constitute  a  Slave  State, 
she  has  people  enough  for  a  l^Vee  State.     I  will  not   3° 
make  Kansas  an  exceptional  case  to  the  other  States 


34  JOINT  DEBATE  AT  FREEPORT 

of  the  Union.  I  hold  it  to  be  a  sound  rule,  of  univer- 
sal application,  to  require  a  Territory  to  contain  the 
requisite  population  for  a  member  of  Congress  be- 
fore it  is  admitted  as  a  State  into  the  Union.  I  made 
5  that  proposition  in  the  Senate  in  1856,  and  I  re- 
newed it  during  the  last  session,  in  a  bill  providing 
that  no  Territory  of  the  United  States  should  form  a 
constitution  and  apply  for  admission  until  it  had 
the  requisite  population.  On  another  occasion  I 
10  proposed  that  neither  Kansas  nor  any  other  Terri- 
tory should  be  admitted  until  it  had  the  requisite 
population.  Congress  did  not  adopt  any  of  my  prop- 
ositions containing  this  general  rule,  but  did  make 
an  exception  of  Kansas.  I  v^^ill  stand  by  that  excep- 
ts tion.  Either  Kansas  must  come  in  as  a  Free  State, 
with  whatever  population  she  may  have,  or  the  rule 
must  be  applied  to  all  the  other  Territories  alike.  I 
therefore  answer  at  once,  that,  it  having  been  decided 
that  Kansas  has  people  enough  for  a  Slave  State,  I 
20  hold  that  she  has  enough  for  a  Free  State.  I  hope 
Mr.  Lincoln  is  satisfied  with  my  answer ;  and  now  I 
would  like  to  get  his  answer  to  his  own  interroga- 
tory,— whether  or  not  he  will  vote  to  admit  Kansas 
before  she  has  the  requisite  population.  I  want  to 
25  know  whether  he  will  vote  to  admit  Oregon  before 
that  Territory  has  the  requisite  population.  Mr. 
Trumbull  will  not,  and  the  same  reason  that  com- 
mits Mr.  Trumbull  against  the  admission  of  Oregon 
commits  him  against  Kansas,  even  if  she  should 
3o  apply  for  admission  as  a  Free  State.  If  there  is  any 
sincerity,  any  truth,  in  the  argument  of  Mr.  Trum- 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  REPLY  35 

bull  in  the  Senate,  against  the  admission  of  Oregon 
because  she  had  not  93,420  people,  although  her 
population  was  larger  than  that  of  Kansas,  he  stands 
pledged  against  the  admission  of  both  Oregon  and 
Kansas  until  they  have  93,420  inhabitants.  I  would  5 
like  Mr.  Lincoln  to  answer  this  question.  I  would 
like  him  to  take  his  own  medicine.  If  he  differs 
with  Mr.  Trumbull,  let  him  answer  his  argument 
against  the  admission  of  Oregon,  instead  of  poking 
questions  at  me.  10 

The  next  question  propounded  to  me  by  Mr.  Lin- 
coln is,  Can  the  people  of  a  Territory  in  any  lawful 
way,  against  the  wishes  of  any  citizen  of  the  United 
States,  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits  prior  to 
the  formation  of  a  State  constitution?  I  answer  i5 
emphatically,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  has  heard  me  answer 
a  hundred  times  from  every  stump  in  Illinois,  that  in 
my  opinion  the  people  of  a  Territory  can,  by  lawful 
means,  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits  prior  to 
the  formation  of  a  State  constitution.  Mr.  Lincoln  20 
knew  that  I  had  answered  that  question  over  and 
over  again.  He  heard  me  argue  the  Nebraska  bill 
on  that  principle  all  over  the  State  in  1854,  in  1855, 
and  in  1856,  and  he  has  no  excuse  for  pretending  to 
be  in  doubt  as  to  my  position  on  that  question.  It  25 
matters  not  what  way  the  Supreme  Court  may  here- 
after decide  as  to  the  abstract  question  whether 
slavery  may  or  may  not  go  into  a  Territory  under 
the  Constitution,  the  people  have  the  lawful  means 
to  introduce  it  or  exclude  it  as  they  please,  for  the  30 
reason  that  slavery  cannot  exist  a  day  or  an  hour 


36  JOINT  DEBATE  AT  FREEPORT 

anywhere,  unless  it  is  supported  by  local  police  regu- 
lations. Those  police  regulations  can  only  be  estab- 
lished by  the  local  legislature ;  and  if  the  people  are 
opposed  to  slavery,  they  will  elect  representatives  to 

5  that  body  who  will  by  unfriendly  legislation  effect- 
ually prevent  the  introduction  of  it  into  their  midst. 
If,  on  the  contrary,  they  are  for  it,  their  legislation 
will  favor  its  extension.  Hence,  no  matter  what  the 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  may  be  on  that  ab- 

lo  stract  question,  still  the  right  of  the  people  to  make 
a  Slave  Territory  or  a  Free  Territory  is  perfect  and 
complete  under  the  Nebraska  bill.    I  hope  Mr.  Lin- 
coln deems  my  answer  satisfactory  on  that  point. 
In  this  connection,  I  wdll  notice  the  charge  which 

15  he  has  introduced  in  relation  to  Mr.  Chase's  amend- 
ment. I  thought  that  I  had  chased  that  amendment 
out  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  brain  at  Ottawa ;  but  it  seems 
that  it  still  haunts  his  imagination,  and  he  is  not  yet 
satisfied.    I  had  supposed  that  he  would  be  ashamed 

20  to  press  that  question  further.  He  is  a  lawyer,  and 
has  been  a  member  of  Congress,  and  has  occupied 
his  time  and  amused  you  by  telling  you  about  par- 
liamentary proceedings.  He  ought  to  have  known 
better  than  to  try  to  palm  off  his  miserable  imposi- 

25  tions  upon  this  intelligent  audience.  The  Nebraska 
bill  provided  that  the  legislative  power  and  authority 
of  the  said  Territory  should  extend  to  all  rightful 
subjects  of  legislation  consistent  with  the  organic 
act  and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.    I  did 

30  not  make  any  exception  as  to  slavery,  but  gave  all 
the  power  that  it  was  possible  for  Congress  to  give, 


MR.  DOUGLAS'S  REPLY  37 

without  violating-  the  Constitution,  to  the  Territorial 
legislature,  with  no  exception  or  limitation  on  the 
subject  of  slavery  at  all.  The  language  of  that  bill 
which  I  have  quoted  gave  the  full  power  and  the 
full  authority  over  the  subject  of  slavery,  affimia-  5 
lively  and  negatively,  to  introduce  it  or  exclude  it, 
so  far  as  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  would 
permit.  What  more  could  Mr.  Chase  give  by  his 
amendment?  Nothing.  He  offered  his  amendment 
for  the  identical  purpose  for  which  Mr.  Lincoln  is  ^o 
using  it, — to  enable  demagogues  in  the  country  to 
try  and  deceive  the  people. 

His  amendment  was  to  this  effect.     It  provided 
that  the  legislature  should  have  the  power  to  exclude 
slavery ;  and  General   Cass  suggested,   *'  Why  not  ^5 
give  the  power  to  introduce  as  well  as  exclude?" 
The  answer  was.  They  have  the  power  already  in 
the  bill  to  do  both.    Chase  was  afraid  his  amendment 
would  be  adopted  if  he  put  the  alternative  proposi- 
tion, and  so  make  it  fair  both  ways,  but  would  not  20 
yield.    He  offered  it  for  the  purpose  of  having  it  re- 
jected. He  offered  it,  as  he  has  himself  avowed  over 
and  over  again,  simply  to  make  capital  out  of  it  for 
the  stump.     He  expected  that  it  would  be  capital 
for  small  politicians  in  the  country,  and  that  they  25 
would  make  an  effort  to  deceive  the  people  with  it; 
and  he  was  not  mistaken,  for  Lincoln  is  carrying 
out  the  plan  admirably.     Lincoln   knows  that  the 
Nebraska  bill,  without  Chase's  amendment,  gave  all 
the    power   which    the   Constitution    would    permit.  30 
Could  Congress  confer  any  more?    Could  Congress 


38  JOINT   DEBATE   AT   FREEPORT 

go  beyond  the  Constitution  of  the  country  ?  We  gave 
all  a  full  grant,  with  no  exception  in  regard  to  slav- 
ery one  way  or  the  other.  We  left  that  question  as 
we  left  all  others,  to  be  decided  by  the  people  for 

5  themselves,  just  as  they  please.  I  will  not  occupy  my 
time  on  this  question.  I  have  argued  it  before,  all 
over  Illinois.  I  have  argued  it  in  this  beautiful  city 
of  Freeport;  I  have  argued  it  in  the  North,  the 
South,  the  East,  and  the  West,  avowing  the  same 

lo  sentiments  and  the  same  principles.  I  have  not  been 
afraid  to  avow  my  sentiments  up  here  for  fear  I 
would  be  trotted  down  Into  Egypt. 

The  third  question  which  Mr.  Lincoln  presented 
is.  If  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  shall 

15  decide  that  a  State  of  this  Union  cannot  exclude 
slavery  from  its  own  limits,  will  I  submit  to  it?  I 
am  amazed  that  Lincoln  should  ask  such  a  question. 
["  A  schoolboy  knows  better."]  Yes,  a  schoolboy 
does  know  better.     Mr.  Lincoln's  object  is  to  cast 

20  an  imputation  upon  the  Supreme  Court.  He  knows 
that  there  never  was  but  one  man  in  America, 
claiming  any  degree  of  intelligence  or  decency,  who 
ever  for  a  moment  pretended  such  a  thing.  It  is 
true  that  the  Washington  **  Union,"  in  an  article 

25  published  on  the  17th  of  last  December,  did  put 
forth  that  doctrine,  and  I  denounced  the  article  on 
the  floor  of  the  Senate,  in  a  speech  which  Mr.  Lin- 
coln now  pretends  was  against  the  President.  The 
"  Union  "  had  claimed  that  slavery  had  a  right  to 

30  go  into  the  Free  States,  and  that  any  provision  in 
the  Constitution  or  laws  of  the  Free  States  to  the 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  REPLY  39 

contrary  were  null  and  void.  I  denounced  it  in  the 
Senate,  as  I  said  before,  and  I  was  the  first  man  who 
did.  Lincoln's  friends,  Trumbull,  and  Seward,  and 
Hale,  and  Wilson,  and  the  whole  Black  Republican 
side  of  the  Senate,  were  silent.  They  left  it  to  me  5 
to  denounce  it.  And  what  w^as  the  reply  made  to 
me  on  that  occasion?  Mr.  Toombs,  of  Georgia,  got 
up  and  undertook  to  lecture  me  on  the  ground  that 
I  ought  not  to  have  deemed  the  article  worthy  of 
notice,  and  ought  not  to  have  replied  to  it;  that  10 
there  was  not  one  man,  woman,  or  child  south  of 
the  Potomac,  in  any  Slave  State,  who  did  not  repu- 
diate any  such  pretension.  Mr.  Lincoln  knows  that 
that  reply  was  made  on  the  spot,  and  yet  now  he 
asks  this  question.  He  might  as  well  ask  me,  Sup-  ^5 
pose  Mr.  Lincoln  should  steal  a  horse,  would  I  sanc- 
tion it ;  and  it  would  be  as  genteel  in  me  to  ask  him, 
in  the  event  he  stole  a  horse,  what  ought  to  be  done 
with  him.  He  casts  an  imputation  upon  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States,  by  supposing  that  20 
they  would  violate  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  I  tell  him  that  such  a  thing  is  not  possible. 
It  would  be  an  act  of  moral  treason  that  no  man  on 
the  bench  could  ever  descend  to.  Mr.  Lincoln  him- 
self would  never  in  his  partisan  feelings  so  far  for-  25 
get  what  was  right  as  to  be  guilty  of  such  an  act. 

The  fourth  question  of  Mr.  Lincoln  is.  Are  you  in 
favor  of  acquiring  additional  territory,  in  disregard 
as  to  how  such  acquisition  may  affect  the  Union  on 
the  Slavery  question?  This  question  is  very  ingen-  30 
iously  and  cunningly  put. 


40  JOINT  DEBATE   AT  FREEPORT 

The  Black  Republican  creed  lays  it  down  expressly 
that  under  no  circumstances  shall  we  acquire  any 
more  territory,  unless  slavery  is  first  prohibited  in 
the  country.     I  ask  Mr.  Lincoln  whether  he  is  in 

5  favor  of  that  proposition.  Are  you  [addressing  Mr. 
Lincoln]  opposed  to  the  acquisition  of  any  more  ter- 
ritory, under  any  circumstances,  unless  slavery  is 
prohibited  in  it?  That  he  does  not  like  to  answer. 
When  I  ask  him  whether  he  stands  up  to  that  article 

lo  in  the  platform  of  his  party,  he  turns,  Yankee-fash- 
ion, and  without  answering  it,  asks  me  whether  I 
am  in  favor  of  acquiring  territory  without  regard  to 
how  it  may  affect  the  Union  on  the  slavery  question. 
I  answer  that  whenever  it  becomes  necessary,  in  our 

15  growth  and  progress,  to  acquire  more  territory,  that 
I  am  in  favor  of  it,  without  reference  to  the  question 
of  slavery;  and  when  we  have  acquired  it,  I  will 
leave  the  people  free  to  do  as  they  please,  either  to 
make  it  slave  or  free  territory,  as  they  prefer.     It 

20  is  idle  to  tell  me  or  you  that  we  have  territory 
enough.  Our  fathers  supposed  that  we  had  enough 
when  our  territory  extended  to  the  Mississippi 
River ;  but  a  few  years'  growth  and  expansion  satis- 
fied them  that  we  needed  more,  and  the  Louisiana 

25  territory,  from  the  West  branch  of  the  Mississippi 
to  the  British  possessions,  was  acquired.  Then  we 
acquired  Oregon,  then  California  and  New  Mexico. 
We  have  enough  now  for  the  present;  but  this  is  a 
young  and  growing  nation.     It  swarms  as  often  as 

30  a  hive  of  bees ;  and  as  new  swarms  are  turned  out 
each  year,  there  must  be  hives  in  which  they  can 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  REPLY  41 

gather  and  make  their  honey.  In  less  than  fifteen 
years,  if  the  same  progress  that  has  distinguished 
this  country  for  the  last  fifteen  years  continues,  every 
foot  of  vacant  land  between  this  and  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  owned  by  the  United  States,  will  be  occupied.  5 
Will  you  not  continue  to  increase  at  the  end  of  fif- 
teen years  as  well  as  now  ?  I  tell  you,  increase,  and 
multiply,  and  expand,  is  the  law  of  this  nation's  ex- 
istence. You  cannot  limit  this  great  Republic  by 
mere  boundary  lines,  saying,  "  Thus  far  shalt  thou  10 
go,  and  no  further."  Any  one  of  you  gentlemen 
might  as  well  say  to  a  son  twelve  years  old  that  he 
is  big  enough,  and  must  not  grow  any  larger ;  and 
in  order  to  prevent  his  growth,  put  a  hoop  around 
him  to  keep  him  to  his  present  size.  What  would  be  15 
the  result  ?  Either  the  hoop  must  burst  and  be  rent 
asunder,  or  the  child  must  die.  So  it  would  be  with 
this  great  nation.  With  our  natural  increase,  grow- 
ing with  a  rapidity  unknown  in  any  part  of  the 
globe,  with  the  tide  of  emigration  that  is  fleeing  20 
from  despotism  in  the  old  world  to  seek  refuge  in 
our  own,  there  is  a  constant  torrent  pouring  into 
this  country  that  requires  more  land,  more  territory 
upon  which  to  settle ;  and  just  as  fast  as  our  interests 
and  our  destiny  require  additional  territory  in  the  25 
North,  in  the  South,  or  on  the  islands  of  the  ocean, 
I  am  for  it;  and  when  we  acquire  it,  will  leave  the 
people,  according  to  the  Nebraska  bill,  free  to  do  as 
they  please  on  the  subject  of  slavery  and  every  other 
question.  2>o 

I  trust  now  that  Mr.  Lincoln  will  deem  himself 


42  JOINT  DEBATE  AT  FREEPORT  ■ 

answered  on  his  four  points.  He  racked  his  brain 
so  much  in  devising  these  four  questions  that  he  ex- 
hausted himself,  and  had  not  strength  enough  to 
invent  the  others.  As  soon  as  he  is  able  to  hold  a 
5  council  with  his  advisers,  Love  joy,  Farnsworth,  and 
Fred  Douglass,  he  will  frame  and  propound  others. 
["  Good,  good."]  You  Black  Republicans  who  say 
good,  I  have  no  doubt  think  that  they  are  all  good 
men.    I  have  reason  to  recollect  that  some  people  in 

lo  this  country  think  that  Fred  Douglass  is  a  very  good 
man.  The  last  time  I  came  here  to  make  a  speech, 
while  talking  from  the  stand  to  you,  people  of  Free- 
port,  as  I  am  doing  to-day,  I  saw  a  carriage — and  a 
magnificent  one  it  was — drive  up  and  take  a  position 

15  on  the  outside  of  the  crowd ;  a  beautiful  young  lady 
was  sitting  on  the  box-seat,  whilst  Fred  Douglass 
and  her  mother  reclined  inside,  and  the  owner  of  the 
carriage  acted  as  driver.  I  saw  this  in  your  own 
town.     ["  What  of  it?  "]     All  I  have  to  say  of  it  is 

20  this,  that  if  you,  Black  Republicans,  think  that  the 
negro  ought  to  be  on  a  social  equality  with  your 
wives  and  daughters,  and  ride  in  a  carriage  with 
your  wife,  whilst  you  drive  the  team,  you  have  per- 
fect right  to  do  so.     I  am  told  that  one  of  Fred 

25  Douglass's  kinsmen,  another  rich  black  negro,  is 
now  traveling  in  this  part  of  the  State,  making 
speeches  for  his  friend  Lincoln  as  the  champion  of 
black  men.  ["  What  have  you  to  say  against  it?  "] 
All  I  have  to  say  on  that  subject  is,  that  those  of 

30  you  who  believe  that  the  negro  is  your  equal  and 
ought  to  be  on  an  equality  with  you  socially,  politi- 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  REPLY  43 

cally,  and  legally,  have  a  right  to  entertain  those 
opinions,  and  of  course  will  vote  for  Mr.  Lincoln. 

I  have  a  word  to  say  on  Mr.  Lincoln's  answers  to 
the  interrogatories  contained  in  my  speech  at  Ot- 
tawa, and  which  he  has  pretended  to  reply  to  here  5 
to-day.  Mr.  Lincoln  makes  a  great  parade  of  the 
fact  that  I  quoted  a  platform  as  having  been  adopted 
by  the  I  Mack  Republican  party  at  Springfield  in  1854, 
which,  it  turns  out,  was  adopted  at  another  place. 
Mr.  Lincoln  loses  sight  of  the  thing  itself  in  his  10 
ecstasies  over  the  mistake  I  made  in  stating  the  place 
where  it  was  done.  He  thinks  that  that  platform  was 
not  adopted  on  the  right  "  spot." 

When  I  put  the  direct  questions  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
to  ascertain  whether  he  now  stands  pledged  to  that  15 
creed, — to  the  unconditional  repeal  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  law,  a  refusal  to  admit  any  more  Slave  States 
into  the  Union,  even  if  the  people  want  them,  a  de- 
termination to  apply  the  W'ilmot  Proviso,  not  only 
to  all  the  territory  we  now  have,  but  all  that  we  may  20 
hereafter  acquire, — he  refused  to  answer;  and  his 
followers  say^  in  excuse,  that  the  resolutions  upon 
which  I  based  my  interrogatories  were  not  adopted 
at  the  ''  right  spot."    Lincoln  and  his  political  friends 
are  great  on  "  spots."    In  Congress,  as  a  representa-  25 
tive  of  this  State,  he  declared  the  Mexican  war  to  be 
unjust  and  infamous,  and  would  not  support  it,  or 
acknowledge  his  own  country  to  be  right  in  the  con- 
test, because  he  said  that  American  blood  was  not  30 
shed  on  American  soil  in  the  ''  right  spot."  And  now 
he  cannot  answer  the  questions  I  put  to  him  at  Ot- 


44  JOINT   DEBATE   AT  FREEPORT 

tawa  because  the  resolutions  I  read  were  not  adopted 
at  the  "right  spot,''  It  may  be  possible  that  I  was  led 
into  an  error  as  to  the  spot  on  which  the  resolutions 
I  then  read  were  proclaimed,  but  I  was  not,  and  am 
5  not,  in  error  as  to  the  fact  of  their  forming  the  basis 
of  the  creed  of  the  Republican  party  when  that  party 
w^as  first  organized.  I  will  state  to  you  the  evidence 
I  had,  and  upon  which  I  relied  for  my  statement  that 
the  resolutions  in  question  were  adopted  at  Spring- 

1°  field  on  the  5th  of  October,  1854.  Although  I  was 
aware  that  such  resolutions  had  been  passed  in  this 
district,  and  nearly  all  the  Northern  Congressional 
Districts  and  County  Conventions,  I  had  not  noticed 
whether  or  not  they  had  been  adopted  by  any  State 

^5  convention.  In  1856,  a  debate  arose  in  Congress 
between  Major  Thomas  L.  Harris,  of  the  Spring- 
field District,  and  Mr.  Norton,  of  the  Joliet  District, 
on  political  matters  connected  with  our  State,  in  the 
course  of  which,  Major  Harris  quoted  those  resolu- 

20  tions  as  having  been  passed  by  the  first  Republican 
State  Convention  that  ever  assembled  in  Illinois.  I 
knew^  that  Major  Harris  was  remarkable  for  his 
accuracy,  that  he  was  a  very  conscientious  and  sin- 
cere man,  and  I  also  noticed  that  Norton  did  not 

25  question  the  accuracy  of  this  statement.  I  therefore 
took  it  for  granted  that  it  was  so ;  and  the  other  day 
when  I  concluded  to  use  the  resolutions  at  Ottawa, 
I  wrote  to  Charles  H.  Lanphier,  editor  of  the  "  State 
Register,"   at   Springfield,   calling  his   attention   to 

30  them,  telling  him  that  I  had  been  informed  that 
Major  Harris  was  lying  sick  at  Springfield,  and  de- 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  REPLY  45 

siring"  him  to  call  upon  him  and  ascertain  all  the 
facts  conccrnini^  the  rcsc^Iiitions,  the  time  and  the 
place  where  they  were  adopted.  In  reply.  Mr.  Lan- 
phicr  sent  me  two  copies  of  his  paper,  which  I  have 
here.  The  first  is  a  copy  of  the  ''  State  Register,"  5 
imblished  at  Springfield,  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  town, 
on  the  i6th  of  October,  1854,  only  eleven  days  after 
the  adjournment  of  the  Convention,  from  which  I 
desire  to  read  the  following: 

"  During   the   late   discussions   in   this   city,   Lincoln    10 
made  a  speech,  to  which  Judge  Douglas  replied.     In 
Lincoln's  speech  he  took  the  broad  ground  that,  accord- 
ing to  the  Declaration  of  Lidcpcndencc,  the  whites  and 
blacks  are  equal.     From  this  he  drew  the  conclusion, 
which  he  several  times  repeated,  that  the  white  man  had    ^5 
no  right  to  pass  laws  for  the  government  of  the  black 
man    without    the    nigger's    consent.     This    speech    of 
Lincoln's  was  heard  and  applauded  by  all  the  Abolition- 
ists assembled  in  Springfield.     So  soon  as  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  done  speaking,  Mr.  Codding  arose,  and  requested   20 
all  the  delegates  to  the  Black  Republican  Convention  to 
withdraw  into  the  Senate  chamber.     They  did  so ;  and 
after  long  deliberation,  they  laid  down  the   following 
Abolition    platform    as    the    platform    on    which    they 
stood.    We  call  the  particular  attention  of  all  our  read-  25 
ers  to  it." 

Then   follows   the   identical   platform,   word   for 
word,  which  I  read  at  Ottawa.    Now,  that  was  pub- 
lished in  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  town,  eleven  days  after 
the  Convention  was  held,  and  it  has  remained  on  30 
record  up  to  this  day  never  contradicted. 


46  JOINT  DEBATE  AT   FREE  PORT 

WTien  I  quoted  the  resolutions  at  Ottawa  and 
questioned  Mr.  Lincoln  in  relation  to  them,  he  said 
that  his  name  was  on  the  committee  that  reported 
them,  but  he  did  not  serve,  nor  did  he  think  he 
5  served,  because  he  was,  or  thought  he  w*as,  in  Taze- 
well County  at  the  time  the  Convention  was  in  ses- 
sion. He  did  not  deny  that  the  resolutions  were 
passed  by  the  Springfield  Convention.  He  did  not 
know  better,  and  evidently  thought  that  they  were; 

lo  but  afterward  his  friends  declared  that  they  had 
discovered  that  they  varied  in  some  respects  from 
the  resolutions  passed  by  that  Convention.  I  have 
shown  you  that  I  had  good  evidence  for  believing 
that  the  resolutions  had  been  passed  at  Springfield. 

15  Mr.  Lincoln  ought  to  have  known  better ;  but  not  a 
word  is  said  about  his  ignorance  on  the  subject, 
whilst  I,  notwithstanding  the  circumstances,  am 
accused  of  forger}*. 

Now,  I  will  show  you  that  if  I  have  miade  a  mis- 

20  take  as  to  the  place  where  these  resolutions  were 
adopted, — and  when  I  get  dow^n  to  Springfield  I  will 
investigate  the  matter,  and  see  whether  or  not  I 
have, — that  the  principles  they  enunciate  were 
adopted  as  the  Black  Republican  platform  ["  white, 

25  w^hite"],  in  the  various  counties  and  Congressional 
Districts  throughout  the  north  end  of  the  State  in 
1854.  This  platform  was  adopted  in  nearly  every 
county-  that  gave  a  Black  Republican  majority  for 
the  Legislature  in  that  year,  and  here  is  a  man 

30  [pointing  to  Mr.  Denio,  who  sat  on  the  stand  near 
Deacon  Bross]  w^ho  knows  as  well  as  any  living  man 


MR.  DOUGLAS'S  REPLY  ^ 

that  it  was  the  creed  of  the  Black  Republican  party 
at  that  time.  I  would  be  willing  to  call  Denio  as  a 
witness,  or  any  other  honest  man  belongmg  to  that 
part}'.  I  will  now  read  the  resolutions  adopted  at 
the  Rockford  Convention  on  the  30th  of  Au-  5 
gust,  1854,  which  nominated  Washbume  for  Con- 
gress. You  elected  him  on  the  following  plat- 
form: 

"Resolved,    That  the  continned  and  increasing  ag- 
gressions of  slavery  in  our  country  are  destructive  of    ic 
the  best  rights  of  a  free  people,  and  that  such  aggres- 
sions   [cannot]    be    successfully   resisted   without   the 
united  political  action  of  all  good  men. 

'*  Resolved,  That  the  citizens  of  the  United  States 
hold  in  their  hands,  a  peaceful,  constitutional,  and  efi-  ^5 
cient  remedy  against  the  encroachments  of  the  slave 
power, — the  ballot  box;  and  if  that  remedy  is  boldly 
and  wisely  applied  the  principles  of  liberty  and  eternal 
justice  will  be  established. 

^'Resolved,    That  we  accept  this  issue  forced  upon   20 
us  by  the  slave  power,  and,  in  defence  of  freedom,  will 
co-operate  and  be  known  as  RepubUcans,  pledged  to  the 
accomplishment  of  the  following  purposes : — 

"  To  bring  the  Administration  of  the  Govemr-er.: 
back  to  the  control  of  first  principles:  to  restore  Kg^-  25 
sas  and  Nebraska  to  the  position  of  Free  Territories; 
to  repeal  and  entirely  abrogate  the  Fugitive  Slave  law; 
to  restrict  slavery  to  those  States  in  which  it  exists;  to 
prohibit  the  admisswn  of  any  more  Slave  States  into  the 
Union ;  to  exclude  slavery  from  all  the  Territories  over  30 
which  the  General  Government  has  exclusive  jurisdic- 
tioo;  and  to  resist  the  acquisition  of  any  more  Terri- 


48  JOINT  DEBATE   AT   FREEPORT 

tories,  unless  the  introduction  of  slavery  therein  for- 
ever shall  have  been  prohibited. 

''Resolved,  That  in  furtherance  of  these  principles 
we  will  use  such  constitutional  and  lawful  means  as 
5  shall  seem  best  adapted  to  their  accomplishment,  and 
that  we  will  support  no  man  for  office  under  the  Gen- 
eral or  State  Government  who  is  not  positively  com- 
mitted to  the  support  of  these  principles,  and  whose 
personal  character  and  conduct  is  not  a  guarantee  that 
he  is  reliable,  and  shall  abjure  all  party  allegiance  and 
lo  ties. 

"Resolved,  That  we  cordially  invite  persons  of  all 
former  political  parties  whatever,  in  favor  of  the  object 
expressed  in  the  above  resolutions,  to  unite  with  us 
in  carrying  them  into  effect." 

Well,  you  think  that  is  a  very  good  platform,  do 
you  not?  If  you  do,  if  you  approve  it  now,  and 
think  it  is  all  right,  you  will  not  join  with  those  men 
who  say  I  libel  you  by  calling  these  your  principles, 

2o  will  you?  Now,  Mr.  Lincoln  complains;  Mr.  Lin- 
coln charges  that  I  did  you  and  him  an  injustice  by 
saying  that  this  was  the  platform  of  your  party.  I 
am  told  that  Washburne  made  a  speech  in  Galena 
last  night,  in  which  he  abused  me  awfully  for  bring- 

25  ing  to  light  this  platform,  on  which  he  was  elected 
to  Congress.  He  thought  that  you  had  forgotten 
it,  as  he  and  Mr.  Lincoln  desired  to.  He  did  not 
deny  that  you  had  adopted  it,  and  that  he  had  sub- 
scribed to  and  was  pledged  by  it,  but  he  did  not 

30  think  it  was  fair  to  call  it  up  and  remind  the  people 
that  it  was  their  platform. 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  REPLY  49 

But,  I  am  glad  to  find  that  you  are  more  honest  in 
your  Abohtionism  than  your  leaders,  by  avowing 
that  it  is  your  platform,  and  right,  in  your  opinion. 

In  the  adoption  of  that  platform,  you  not  only 
declared  that  you  would  resist  the  admission  of  any  5 
more  Slave  States,  and  work  for  the  repeal  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  law,  but  you  pledged  yourselves  not 
to  vote  for  any  man  for  State  or  Federal  offices  who 
was  not  committed  to  these  principles.  You  were 
thus  committed.  Similar  resolutions  to  those  were  10 
adopted  in  your  county  Convention  here,  and  now 
with  your  admissions  that  they  are  your  platform 
and  embody  your  sentiments  now  as  they  did  then, 
what  do  you  think  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  your  candidate 
for  the  United  States  Senate,  who  is  attempting  to  15 
dodge  the  responsibility  of  this  platform,  because 
it  was  not  adopted  in  the  right  spot  ?  I  thought  that 
it  was  adopted  in  Springfield ;  but  it  turns  out  it 
was  not,  that  it  was  adopted  at  Rockford,  and  in 
the  various  counties  which  comprise  this  Congres-  20 
sional  District.  When  I  get  into  the  next  district, 
I  will  show  that  the  same  platform  was  adopted 
there,  and  so  on  through  the  State,  until  I  nail  the 
responsibility  of  it  upon  the  Black  Republican  party 
throughout  the  State.  25 

A  voice:  Couldn't  you  modify,  and  call  it 
brown  ? 

Mr.  Douglas:     Not  a  bit.     I  thought  that  you 
were  becoming  a  little  brown  when  your  members 
in  Congress  voted  for  the  Crittenden- Montgomery  3° 
bill;  but  since  you  have  backed  out  from  that  posi- 


50  JOINT   DEBATE   AT  FREEPORT 

tion  and  gone  back  to  Abolitionism  you  are  black, 
and  not  brown. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  shown  you  what  your  platform 
was  in  1854.  You  still  adhere  to  it.  The  same 
5  platform  was  adopted  by  nearly  all  the  counties 
where  the  Black  Republican  party  had  a  majority 
in  1854.  I  wish  now  to  call  your  attention  to  the 
action  of  your  representatives  in  the  Legislature 
when  they  assembled  together  at  Springfield.     In 

10  the  first  place,  you  must  remember  that  this  was  the 
organization  of  a  new  party.  It  is  so  declared  in 
the  resolutions  themselves,  which  say  that  you  are 
going  to  dissolve  all  old  party  ties  and  call  the  new 
party  Republican.     The  old  \\^hig  party  was  to  have 

15  its  throat  cut  from  ear  to  ear,  and  the  Democratic 
party  was  to  be  annihilated  and  blotted  out  of 
existence,  whilst  in  lieu  of  these  parties  the  Black 
Republican  party  was  to  be  organized  on  this  Aboli- 
tion platform.     You  know  who  the  chief  leaders 

20  were  in  breaking  up  and  destroying  these  two  great 
parties.  Lincoln  on  the  one  hand,  and  Trumbull  on 
the  other,  being  disappointed  politicians,  and  having 
retired,  or  been  driven  to  obscurity  by  an  outraged 
constituency  because  of  their  political  sins,  formed 

25  a  scheme  to  Abolitionize  the  tw^o  parties,  and  lead 
the  old  line  Whigs  and  old  line  Democrats  captive, 
bound  hand  and  foot,  into  the  Abolition  camp. 
Giddings,  Chase,  Fred  Douglass,  and  Love  joy  were 
here  to  christen  them  whenever  they  were  brought 

30  in.  Lincoln  went  to  work  to  dissolve  the  old  line 
Whig  party.     Clay  was  dead ;  and  although  the  sod 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  REPLY  51 

was  not  yet  green  on  his  p^rave,  this  man  undertook 
to  hrinp:  into  disrepute  those  great  Compromise 
measures  of  1850,  with  which  Clay  and  Wehster 
were  identified.  Up  to  1854  the  old  Whig  party  and 
the  Democratic  party  had  stood  on  a  common  plat-  5 
form  so  far  as  this  slavery  question  was  concerned. 
You  Whigs  and  we  Democrats  differed  about  the 
bank,  the  tariff,  distribution,  the  specie  circular,  and 
the  sub-treasury,  but  we  agreed  on  this  slavery  ques- 
tion, and  the  true  mode  of  preserving  the  peace  and  10 
harmony  of  the  Union.  The  Compromise  measures 
of  1850  were  introduced  by  Clay,  were  defended  by 
Webster,  and  supported  by  Cass,  and  were  approved 
by  Fillmore,  and  sanctioned  by  the  National  men  of 
both  parties.  They  constituted  a  common  plank  15 
upon  which  both  Whigs  and  Democrats  stood.  In 
1852  the  Whig  party,  in  its  last  National  Convention 
at  Baltimore,  indorsed  and  approved  these  measures 
of  Clay,  and  so  did  the  National  Convention  of  the 
Democratic  party  held  that  same  year.  Thus  the  20 
old  line  Whigs  and  the  old  line  Democrats  stood 
pledged  to  the  great  princij^le  of  self-government, 
which  guarantees  to  the  people  of  each  Territory 
the  right  to  decide  the  slavery  question  for  them- 
selves. In  1854,  after  the  death  of  Clay  and  Web-  25 
ster,  Mr.  Lincoln,  on  the  part  of  the  Whigs,  under- 
took to  Abolitionize  the  Whig  party,  by  dissolving 
it,  transferring  the  members  into  the  Abolition 
camp,  and  making  them  train  under  Giddings,  Fred 
Douglass,  Lovejoy,  Chase,  Farnsworth,  and  other  30 
Abolition  leaders.     Trumbull  undertook  to  dissolve 


52  JOINT  DEBATE  AT  FREEPORT 

the  Democratic  party  by  taking  old  Democrats  into 
the  AboHtion  camp.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  aided  in  his 
efforts  by  many  leading  Whigs  throughout  the  State, 
your  member  of  Congress,  Mr.  Washburne,  being 
5  one  of  the  most  active.  Trumbull  was  aided  by 
many  renegades  from  the  Democratic  party,  among 
whom  were  John  Wentworth,  Tom  Turner,  and 
others,  with  whom  you  are  familiar. 

[Mr.  Turner,  wdio  was  one  of  the  moderators, 

lo  here  interposed,  and  said  that  he  had  drawn  the  res- 
olutions which  Senator  Douglas  had  read.] 

Mr.  Douglas  :  Yes,  and  Turner  says  that  he  drew 
these  resolutions.  [*'  Hurrah  for  Turner,"  "Hur- 
rah  for   Douglas."]     That   is   right;   give   Turner 

15  cheers  for  drawing  the  resolutions  if  you  approve 
them.  If  he  drew  those  resolutions,  he  will  not 
deny  that  they  are  the  creed  of  the  Black  Republican 
party. 

Mr.  Turner:     They  are  our  creed  exactly. 

20  Mr.  Douglas:  And  yet  Lincoln  denies  that  he 
stands  on  them.  Mr.  Turner  says  that  the  creed  of 
the  Black  Republican  party  is  the  admission  of  no 
more  Slave  States,  and  yet  Mr.  Lincoln  declares 
that  he  would  not  like  to  be  placed  in  a  position 

25  where  he  would  have  to  vote  for  them.  All  I  have 
to  say  to  friend  Lincoln  is,  that  I  do  not  think  there 
is  much  danger  of  his  being  placed  in  such  an 
embarrassing  position  as  to  be  obliged  to  vote  on 
the  admission  of  any  more  Slave  States ;  I  propose, 

30  out  of  mere  kindness,  to  relieve  him  from  any  such 
necessity. 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   REPLY  53 

When  the  barp^ain  between  Lincoln  and  Trum- 
bull was  completed  for  Abolitionizing-  the  Whig  and 
Democratic  parties,  they  *'  spread  "  over  the  State, 
Lincoln  still  pretending  to  be  an  old  line  Whig,  in 
order  to  "  rope  in  "  the  Whigs,  and  Trumbull  pre-  5 
tending  to  be  as  good  a  Democrat  as  he  ever  was, 
in  order  to  coax  the  Democrats  over  into  the  Aboli- 
tion ranks.  They  played  the  part  that  ''  decoy 
ducks  "  play  down  on  the  Potomac  River.  In  that 
part  of  the  country  they  make  artificial  ducks,  and  10 
put  them  on  the  water  in  places  where  the  wild 
ducks  are  to  be  found,  for  the  purpose  of  decoying 
them.  Well,  Lincoln  and  Trumbull  played  the  part 
of  these  "decoy  ducks,"  and  deceived  enough  old 
line  Whigs  and  old  line  Democrats  to  elect  a  Black  15 
Republican  Legislature.  When  that  Legislature  met, 
the  first  thing  it  did  was  to  elect  as  Speaker  of 
the  House  the  very  man  who  is  now  boasting  that 
he  wrote  the  Abolition  platform  on  which  Lincoln 
will  not  stand.  I  want  to  know  of  Air.  Turner  20 
whether  or  not,  when  he  was  elected,  he  was  a  good 
embodiment  of  Republican  principles? 

Mr.  Turner  :  I  hope  I  was  then,  and  am  now. 

Mr.  Douglas  :  He  swears  that  he  hopes  he  was 
then,  and  is  now.  He  wrote  that  Black  Republican  25 
platform,  and  is  satisfied  with  it  now.  I  admire  and 
acknowledge  Turner's  honesty.  Every  man  of  you 
knows  that  what  he  says  about  these  resolutions 
being  the  platform  of  the  Black  Republican  party  is 
true,  and  you  also  know  that  each  one  of  these  men  30 
who  are  shuffling  and  trying  to  deny  it  is  only  try- 


54  JOINT  DEBATE   AT   FREEPORT 

ing  to  cheat  the  people  out  of  their  votes  for  the 
purpose  of  deceiving  them  still  more  after  the 
election.  I  propose  to  trace  this  thing  a  little  fur- 
ther, in  order  that  you  can  see  what  additional  evi- 
5  dence  there  is  to  fasten  this  revolutionary  platform 
upon  the  Black  Republican  party.  When  the  Legis- 
lature assembled,  there  was  a  United  States  Senator 
to  elect  in  the  place  of  General  Shields,  and  before 
they  proceeded  to  ballot,  Love  joy  insisted  on  laying 

lo  down  certain  principles  by  which  to  govern  the 
party.  It  has  been  published  to  the  world  and  satis- 
factorily proven  that  there  was,  at  the  time  the 
alliance  was  made  between  Trumbull  and  Lincoln  to 
Abolitionize  the  two  parties,  an  agreement  that  Lin- 

15  coin  should  take  Shields's  place  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  Trumbull  should  have  mine  so  soon  as 
they  could  conveniently  get  rid  of  me.  When  Lin- 
coln was  beaten  for  Shields's  place,  in  a  manner  I 
will  refer  to  in  a  few  minutes,  he  felt  very  sore  and 

20  restive;  his  friends  grumbled,  and  some  of  them 
came  out  and  charged  that  the  most  infamous 
treachery  had  been  practiced  against  him;  that  the 
bargain  was  that  Lincoln  was  to  have  had  Shields's 
place,  and  Trumbull  was  to  have  waited  for  mine, 

25  but  that  Trumbull,  having  the  control  of  a  few 
Abolitionized  Democrats,  he  prevented  them  from 
voting  for  Lincoln,  thus  keeping  him  within  a  few 
votes  of  an  election  until  he  succeeded  in  forcing 
the  party  to  drop  him  and  elect  Trumbull.     Well, 

30  Trumbull  having  cheated  Lincoln,  his  friends  made 
a  fuss,  and  in  order  to  keep  them  and  Lincoln  quiet, 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   REPLY  55 

the  party  was  oblii^^cd  to  come  forward,  in  advance, 
at  the  last  State  election,  and  make  a  pledge  that 
they  would  go  for  Lincoln  and  nobody  else.  Lin- 
coln could  not  be  silenced  in  any  other  way. 

Now,  there  are  a  great  many  Black  Republicans    5 
of   you    who   do   not   know    this    thing   was    done. 
["White,   white,"   and  great  clamor.]      I   wish  to 
remind  you  that  while  Mr.  Lincoln  was  speaking 
there  was  not  a  Democrat  vulgar  and  blackguard 
enough  to  interrupt  him.     But  I  know  that  the  shoe  lo 
is  pinching  you.     I  am  clinching  Lincoln  now,  and 
you  are  scared  to  death  for  the  result.     I  have  seen 
this  thing  before.     I  have  seen  men  make  appoint- 
ments for  joint  discussions,  and  the  moment  their 
man  has  been  heard,  try  to  interrupt  and  prevent  a  15 
fair  hearing  of  the  other  side.     I  have  seen  your 
mobs  before,  and  defy  your  wrath.      [Tremendous 
applause.]     My  friends,  do  not  cheer,  for  I  need  my 
whole   time.     The   object   of   the   opposition   is   to 
occupy  my  attention  in  order  to  prevent  me  from  20 
giving  the  whole  evidence  and  nailing  this  double 
dealing  on  the  Black  Republican  party.     As  I  have 
before   said.   Love  joy   demanded   a   declaration   of 
principles  on  the  part  of  the  Black  Republicans  of 
the  Legislature  before  going  into  an  election   for  25 
L^nited  States  Senator.     He  offered  the  following 
preamble    and    resolutions    which    I    hold    in    my 
hand : 

"  Whereas,  Human  slavery  is  a  violation  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  natural  and  revealed  rights;  and  whereas  the   30 


56  JOIXT   DEBATE   AT   FREEPORT 

fathers  of  the  Revolution,  fully  imbued  with  the  spirit 
of  these  principles,  declared  freedom  to  be  the  inalien- 
able birthright  of  all  men;  and  whereas  the  preamble 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  avers  that  that 

5  instrument  was  ordained  to  establish  justice,  and  secure 
the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  posterity; 
and,  whereas,  in  furtherance  of  the  above  principles, 
slavery  was  forever  prohibited  in  the  old  Northwest 
Territory,  and  more  recently  in  all  that  Territory  lying 

lo  west  and  north  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  by  the  act  of 
the  Federal  Government;  and  whereas  the  repeal  of 
the  prohibition  last  referred  to  was  contrary  to  the 
wishes  of  the  people  of  Illinois,  a  violation  of  an  im- 
plied compact  long  deemed  sacred  by  the  citizens  of  the 

15  United  States  and  a  wide  departure  from  the  uniform 
action  of  the  General  Government  in  relation  to  the 
extension  of  slavery;  therefore, 

*'  Resoh'ed,  by  the  House  of  Representatives^  the  Sen- 
ate concurring  therein,  That  our  Senators  in  Congress 

20  be  instructed,  and  our  Representatives  requested  to 
introduce,  if  not  otherwise  introduced,  and  to  vote  for 
a  bill  to  restore  such  prohibition  to  the  aforesaid  Ter- 
ritories, and  also  to  extend  a  similar  prohibition  to  all 
territory  which  now  belongs  to  the  United  States,  or 

25   which  may  hereafter  come  under  their  jurisdiction. 

"Resolved,  That  our  Senators  in  Congress  be  in- 
structed, and  our  Representatives  requested,  to  vote 
against  the  admission  of  any  State  into  the  Union,  the 
Constitution  of  which  does  not  prohibit  slavery,  whether 

30  the  territory  out  of  which  such  State  may  have  been 

formed  shall  have  been  acquired  by  conquest,  treaty, 

purchase,    or    from    original    territory    of    the    United 

States. 

"Resolved,    That    our    Senators    in    Congress    be 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   REPLY  57 

instructed,  and  our  Representatives  requested,  to  intro- 
duce and  vote  for  a  bill  to  repeal  an  Act  entitled  '  an 
Act  respecting  fugitives  from  justice  and  persons  escap- 
ing from  the  service  of  their  masters;'  and,  failing  in 
that,  for  such  a  modification  of  it  as  shall  secure  the  5 
right  of  habeas  corpus  and  trial  by  jury  before  the  reg- 
ularly constituted  authorities  of  the  State,  to  all  persons 
claimed  as  owing  service  or  labor." 

Those  resolutions  were  introduced  by  Mr.  Love- 
joy  immediately  preceding  the  election  of  Senator.   10 
They  declared,  first,  that  the  Wilmot  Proviso  must 
be  applied  to  all  territory  north  of  36  deg.  30  min. ; 
secondly,   that  it  must  be  applied  to   all  territory 
south  of  36  deg.    30  min. ;  thirdly,  that  it  must  be 
applied  to  all  the  territory  now  owned  by  the  United   15 
States ;  and  finally,  that  it  must  be  applied  to  all 
territory   hereafter  to   be   acquired  by   the   United 
States.     The  next  resolution  declares  that  no  more 
Slave    States    shall    be    admitted    into    this    Union 
under    any    circumstances    whatever,    no    matter  20 
whether  they  are  formed  out  of  territory  now  owned 
by  us  or  that  we  may  hereafter  acquire,  by  treaty, 
by  Congress,  or  in  any  manner  whatever.     The  next 
resolution  demands  the  unconditional  repeal  of  the 
Fugitive    Slave    law,    although    its    unconditional   25 
repeal  would  leave  no  provision   for  carrying  out 
that  clause  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
which   guarantees   the   surrender  of   fugitives.     If 
they   could  not  get  an   unconditional   repeal,   they 
demanded  that  that  law  should  be  so  modified  as  to   30 
make  it  as  nearly  useless  as  possible.     Now,  I  want 


58  JOIXT  DEBATE   AT  FREEPORT 

to  show  you  who  voted  for  these  resolutions.  When 
the  vote  was  taken  on  the  first  resolution  it  was 
decided  in  the  affirmative, — yeas  41,  nays  2i--  ^o^ 
will  find  that  this  is  a  strict  part>'  vote,  between  the 

5  Democrats  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Black  Repub- 
licans on  the  other.  [Cries  of  "  White,  white,"  and 
clamor,]  I  know  your  name,  and  always  call  things 
by  their  right  name.  The  point  I  wish  to  call  your 
attention   to   is   this:   that   these   resolutions    were 

10  adopted  on  the  7th  day  of  Februan.-,  and  that  on  the 
8th  they  went  into  an  election  for  a  United  States 
Senator,  and  that  day  everv'  man  who  voted  for  these 
resolutions,  with  but  two  exceptions,  voted  for  Lin- 
cohi  for  the  United  States  Senate.     ["  Give  us  their 

15  names."]  I  will  read  the  names  over  to  you  if  you 
want  them,  but  I  believe  your  object  is  to  occupy 
my  time. 

On  the  next  resolution  the  vote  stood — yeas  33, 
nays  40;  and  on  the  third  resolution — yeas  35,  nays 

20  47.  I  wish  to  impress  it  upon  you  that  every  man 
who  voted  for  those  resolutions,  with  but  two  excep- 
tions, voted  on  the  next  day  for  Lincoln  for  United 
States  Senator.  Bear  in  mind  that  the  m-embers 
who  thus  voted  for  Lincoln  were  elected  to  the  Leg- 

25  islature  pledged  to  vote  for  no  man  for  office  under 
the  State  or  Federal  Government  who  was  not  com- 
mitted to  this  Black  Republican  platform.  They 
were  all  so  pledged.  Mr.  Turner,  who  stands  by 
me,  and  who  then  represented  you,  and  who  says 

30  that  he  wrote  those  resolutions,  voted  for  Lincoln, 
when  he  was  pledged  not  to  do  so  unless  Lincoln 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  REPLY  59 

was  in  favor  of  those  resolutions.  I  no^v  ask  Mr. 
Turner  [turning  to  Mr.  Turner],  did  you  violate 
your  pledge  in  voting  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  or  did  he 
commit  himself  to  your  platform  before  you  cast 
your  vote  for  him?  5 

I  could  go  through  the  whole  list  of  names  here, 
and  show  you  that  all  the  Black  Republicans  in  the 
Legislature,  who  voted  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  had  voted 
on  tlie  day  previous  for  these  resolutions.  For 
instance,  here  are  the  names  of  Sargent  and  Little,  10 
of  Jo  Daviess  and  Carroll,  Thomas  J.  Turner  of 
Stephenson,  Lawrence  of  Boone  and  McHenr}-, 
Swan  of  Lake,  Pinckney  of  Ogle  County,  and 
Lyman  of  Winnebago.  Thus  you  see  every  member 
from  your  Congressional  District  voted  for  Mr.  15 
Lincoln,  and  they  were  pledged  not  to  vote  for  him 
unless  he  was  committed  to  the  doctrine  of  no  more 
Slave  States,  the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Ter- 
ritories, and  the  repeal  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  law. 
Mr.  Lincoln  tells  you  to-day  that  he  is  not  pledged  20 
to  any  such  doctrine.  Either  Mr.  Lincoln  was  then 
committed  to  those  propositions,  or  Mr.  Turner 
violated  his  pledges  to  you  when  he  voted  for  him. 
Either  Lincoln  was  pledged  to  each  one  of  those 
propositions,  or  else  ever\-  Black  Republican  Repre-  25 
sentative  from  this  Congressional  District  violated 
his  pledge  of  honor  to  his  constituents  by  voting  for 
him.  I  ask  you  which  horn  of  the  dilemma  will 
you  take?  Will  you  hold  Lincoln  up  to  the  plat- 
form of  his  party,  or  will  you  accuse  even,-  Repre-  30 
sentative  you  had  in  the  Legislature  of  violating  his 


6o  JOINT  DEBATE   AT  FREEPORT 

pledge  of  honor  to  his  constituents?  There  is  no 
escape  for  you.  Either  ]\Ir.  Lincoln  was  committed 
to  "those  propositions,  or  your  members  violated  their 
faith.  Take  either  horn  of  the  dilemma  you  choose. 
5  There  is  no  dodging  the  question ;  I  want  Lincoln's 
answer.  He  says  he  was  not  pledged  to  repeal  the 
Fugitive  Slave  law,  that  he  does  not  quite  like  to 
do  it;  he  will  not  introduce  a  law  to  repeal  it,  but 
thinks  there  ought  to  be  some  law ;  he  does  not  tell 

lo  what  it  ought  to  be;  upon  the  whole,  he  is  alto- 
gether undecided,  and  don't  know  what  to  think  or 
do.  That  is  the  substance  of  his  answer  upon  the 
repeal  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  law.  I  put  the  question 
to  him  distinctly,  whether  he  indorsed  that  part  of 

15  the  Black  Republican  platformi  which  calls  for  the 
entire  abrogation  and  repeal  of  the  Fugitive  Slave 
law.  He  answers,  No !  that  he  does  not  indorse 
that ;  but  he  does  not  tell  what  he  is  for,  or  what  he 
will  vote  for.     His  answer  is,  in  fact,  no  answer  at 

20  all.  Why  cannot  he  speak  out,  and  say  what  he  is 
for,  and  what  he  will  do  ? 

In  regard  to  there  being  no  more  Slave  States,  he 
is  not  pledged  to  that.  He  would  not  like,  he  says, 
to  be  put  in  a  position  where  he  would  have  to  vote 

25  one  way  or  another  upon  that  question.  I  pray  you, 
do  not  put  him  in  a  position  that  would  embarrass 
him  so  much.  Gentlemen,  if  he  goes  to  the  Senate, 
he  may  be  put  in  that  position,  and  then  which  way 
will  he  vote  ? 

30       A  Voice  :  How  will  you  vote  ? 

Mr.  Douglas:  I  will  vote  for  the  admission  of 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  REPLY  6i 

just  such  a  State  as  by  the  form  of  their  constitu- 
tion the  people  show  they  want ;  if  they  want  slavery, 
they  shall  have  it;  if  they  prohibit  slavery,  it  shall 
be  prohibited.  They  can  form  their  institutions  to 
please  themselves,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution;  5 
and  I,  for  one,  stand  ready  to  receive  them  into  the 
Union.  Why  cannot  your  Black  Republican  can- 
didates talk  out  as  plain  as  that  when  they  are 
questioned  ? 

I  do  not  want  to  cheat  any  man  out  of  his  vote.   10 
No  man  is  deceived  in  regard  to  my  principles  if  I 
have  the  power  to  express  myself  in  terms  explicit 
enough  to  convey  my  ideas. 

Mr.  Lincoln  made  a  speech  when  he  was  nomi- 
nated for  the  United   States   Senate  which  covers   15 
all  these  Abolition  platforms.     He  there  lays  down 
a  proposition  so  broad  in  its  Abolitionism  as  to  cover 
the  whole  ground. 

"  In  my  opinion  it   [the  slavery  agitation]   will  not  20 
cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached  and  passed. 
*A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.'    I  believe 
this  government  cannot  endure  permanently,  half  slave 
and  half  free.     I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall,  but  I 
do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.     It  will  become  25 
all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.    Either  the  opponents  of 
slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place 
it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that 
it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advo- 
cates will   push   it   forward  till   it  shall   become   alike  30 
lawful  in  all  the  States, — old  as  well  as  new,  North  as 
well  as  South." 


62  JOINT  DEBATE   AT  FREEPORT 

There  you  find  that  Mr.  Lincoln  lays  down  the 
doctrine  that  this  Union  cannot  endure  divided  as 
our  fathers  made  it,  with  Free  and  Slave  States. 
He  says  they  must  all  become  one  thing,  or  all  the 
5  other ;  that  they  must  all  be  free  or  all  slave,  or  else 
the  Union  cannot  continue  to  exist;  it  being  his 
opinion  that  to  admit  any  more  Slave  States,  to  con- 
tinue to  divide  the  Union  into  Free  and  Slave  States, 
will  dissolve  it.     I  want  to  know  of  Mr.  Lincoln 

lo  w^hether  he  will  vote  for  the  admission  of  another 
Slave  State. 

He  tells  you  the  Union  cannot  exist  unless  the 
States  are  all  free  or  all  slave;  he  tells  you  that  he 
is  opposed  to  making  them  all  slave,  and  hence  he  is 

15  for  making  them  all  free,  in  order  that  the  Union 
may  exist;  and  yet  he  will  not  say  that  he  will  not 
vote  against  another  Slave  State,  knowing  that  the 
Union  must  be  dissolved  if  he  votes  for  it.  I  ask 
you  if  that  is  fair  dealing?     Tha  true  intent  and 

20  inevitable  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  his  first 
Springfield  speech  is,  that  he  is  opposed  to  the  admis- 
sion of  any  more  Slave  States  under  any  circum- 
stance. If  he  is  so  opposed,  why  not  say  so?  If 
he  believes  this  Union  cannot  endure  divided  into 

25  Free  and  Slave  States,  that  they  must  all  become  free 
in  order  to  save  the  Union,  he  is  bound  as  an  honest 
man  to  vote  against  any  more  Slave  States.  If  he 
believes  it,  he  is  bound  to  do  it.  Show  me  that  it 
is  my  duty,  in  order  to  save  the  Union,  to  do  a  par- 

30  ticular  act,  and  I  will  do  it,  if  the  Constitution  does 
not  prohibit  it.     I  am  not  for  the  dissolution  of  the 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  RIIPLY  6^ 

Union  under  any  circumstances.  I  will  pursue  no 
course  of  conduct  that  will  ^ive  just  cause  for  the 
dissolution  of  the  Union.  The  hope  of  the  friends 
of  freedom  throui^hout  the  world  rests  upon  the 
perpetuity  of  this  Union.  The  down-trodden  and  5 
oppressed  people  who  are  suffering  under  European 
despotism  all  look  with  hope  and  anxiety  to  the 
American  Union  as  the  only  resting  place  and  per- 
manent home  of  freedom  and  self-government. 

Mr.  Lincoln  says  that  he  believes  that  this  Union  10 
cannot  continue  to  endure  with  Slave  States  in  it, 
and  yet  he  will  not  tell  you  distinctly  whether  he  will 
vote  for  or  against  the  admission  of  any  more  Slave 
States,  but  says  he  would  not  like  to  be  put  to  the 
test.     I  do  not  think  he  will  be  put  to  the  test.     I  do  15 
not  think  that  the  people  of  Illinois  desire  a  man  to 
represent  them  who  would  not  like  to  be  put  to  the 
test  on  the  performance   of  a   high   constitutional 
duty.     I  will  retire  in  shame  from  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States  when  I  am  not  willing  to  be  put  to  20 
the  test  in  the  performance  of  my  duty.     I  have  been 
put  to  severe  tests.     I  have  stood  by  my  principles 
in  fair  weather  and  in  foul,  in  the  sunshine  and  in 
the  rain.     I  have  defended  the  great  principles  of 
self-government   here  among  you   when   Northern  25 
sentiment  ran  in  a  torrent  against  me,  and  I  have 
defended  that  same  great  principle  when  Southern 
sentiment  came  down  like  an  avalanche  upon  me.     I 
was  not  afraid  of  any  test  they  put  to  me.     I  knew 
I  was  right ;  I  knew  my  principles  were  sound ;  I  3° 
knew  that  the  people  would  see  in  the  end  that  I  had 


64 


JOINT   DEBATE   AT   FREEPORT 


done  right,  and  I  knew  that  the  God  of  heaven  would 
smile  upon  me  if  I  was  faithful  in  the  performance 
of  my  duty. 

Mr.  Lincoln  makes  a  charge  of  corruption  against 
5  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  and 
two  Presidents  of  the  United  States,  and  attempts 
to  bolster  it  up  by  saying  that  I  did  the  same  against 
the  Washington  "  Union."  Suppose  I  did  make 
that  charge  of  corruption  against  the  Washington 

lo  "  Union,"  when  it  was  true,  does  that  justify  him  in 
making  a  false  charge  against  me  and  others  ?  That 
is  the  question  I  would  put.  He  says  that  at  the 
time  the  Nebraska  bill  was  introduced,  and  before 
it  was  passed,  there  was  a  conspiracy  between  the 

^5  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  President  Pierce, 
President  Buchanan,  and  myself,  by  that  bill  and 
the  decision  of  the  court  to  break  down  the  barrier 
and  establish  slavery  all  over  the  Union.  Does  he 
not  know  that  that  charge  is  historically  false  as 

2o  against  President  Buchanan?  He  knows  that  Mr. 
Buchanan  was  at  that  time  in  England,  representing 
this  country  with  distinguished  ability  at  the  Court 
of  St.  James,  that  he  was  there  for  a  long  time 
before,  and  did  not  return  for  a  year  or  more  after. 

25  He  knows  that  to  be  true,  and  that  fact  proves  his 
charge  to  be  false  as  against  Mr.  Buchanan.  Then, 
again,  I  wish  to  call  his  attention  to  the  fact  that 
at  the  time  the  Nebraska  bill  was  passed,  the  Dred 
Scott  case  was  not  before  the  Supreme  Court  at  all ; 

3°  it  was  not  upon  the  docket  of  the  Supreme  Court; 
it  had  not  been  brought  there ;  and  the  Judges  in  all 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   REPLY  65 

probability  knew  nothing  of  it.     Thus  the  history 
of  the  country   proves  the  charge  to  be   false  as 
against   them.     As   to   President    Pierce,   his   high 
character  as  a  man  of  intecfritv  and  honor  is  enouirh 
to  vindicate  him   from  such   a  charge ;  and  as  to    5 
myself,   I   pronounce   the   charge   an   infamous   lie, 
whenever  and  wherever  made,  and  by  whomsoever 
made.     I  am  willing  that  Air.  Lincoln  should  go  and 
rake  up  every  public  act  of  mine,  every  measure  I 
have  introduced,  report  I  have  made,  speech  deliv-  10 
crcd,  and  criticise  them ;  but  when  he  charges  upon 
me  a  corrupt  conspiracy  for  the  purpose  of  pervert- 
ing the  institutions  of  the  country,  I  brand  it  as  it 
deserves.     I  say  the  history  of  the  country  proves  it 
to  be  false,  and  that  it  could  not  have  been  possible   15 
at  the  time.     But  now  he  tries  to  protect  himself  in 
this  charge,  because  I  made  a  charge  against  the 
Washington  "  Union."     My  speech   in   the   Senate 
against  the  Washington  "  Union  "  was  made  because 
it  advocated  a  revolutionary  doctrine,  by  declaring   20 
that  the  Free  States  had  not  the  right  to  prohibit 
slavery  within  their  own  limits.     Because  I  made 
that  charge  against  the  Washington  "  Union,"  Mr. 
Lincoln  says  it  was  a  charge  against  Mr.  Buchanan. 
Suppose  it  was :  is  Mr.  Lincoln  the  peculiar  defender  25 
of  Mr.  Buchanan?     Is  he  so  interested  in  the  Fed- 
eral Administration,  and  so  bound  to  it,  that  he  must 
jump  to  the  rescue  and  defend  it  from  every  attack 
that    I    may   make    against    it?     I    understand    the 
whole    thing.     The    Washington    "  Union,"    under   30 
that  most  corrupt  of  all  men,  Cornelius  Wendell,  is 


(^  JOINT  DEBATE  AT  FREEPORT 

advocating  Mr.  Lincoln's  claim  to  the  Senate. 
Wendell  was  the  printer  of  the  last  Black  Republican 
House  of  Representatives ;  he  was  a  candidate  before 
the  present  Democratic  House,  but  was  ignomini- 
5  ously  kicked  out ;  and  then  he  took  the  money  which 
he  had  made  out  of  the  public  printing  by  means  of 
the  Black  Republicans,  bought  the  Washington 
"  Union,"  and  is  now  publishing  it  in  the  name  of 
the  Democratic  party,  and  advocating  Mr.  Lincoln's 

lo  election  to  the  Senate.  Mr.  Lincoln  therefore  con- 
siders an  attack  upon  Wendell  and  his  corrupt  gang 
as  a  personal  attack  upon  him.  This  only  proves 
what  I  have  charged, — that  there  is  an  alliance 
between  Lincoln  and  his  supporters,  and  the  Federal 

15  office-holders  of  this  State,  and  the  Presidential 
aspirants  out  of  it,  to  break  me  down  at  home. 

Mr.  Lincoln  feels  bound  to  come  in  to  the  rescue 
of  the  Washington  "  Union."  In  that  speech  which 
I  delivered  in  answer  to  the  Washington  "  Union," 

20  I  made  it  distinctly  against  the  ''  Union,"  and 
against  the  "  Union  "  alone.  I  did  not  choose  to 
go  beyond  that.  Lf  I  have  reason  to  attack  the 
President's  conduct,  I  will  do  it  in  language  that 
will  not  be  misunderstood.  When  I  differed  with  the 

25  President,  I  spoke  out  so  that  you  all  heard  me. 
That  question  passed  away ;  it  resulted  in  the  tri- 
umph of  my  principle,  by  allowing  the  people  to  do 
as  they  please ;  and  there  is  an  end  of  the  contro- 
versy.    Whenever  the  great  principle  of  self-gov- 

30  ernment, — the  right  of  the  people  to  make  their  own 
Constitution,  and  come  into  the  Union  with  slavery 


MR.  LIXCOLN'S  REJOINDER  fy 

or  without  it,  as  they  see  proper, — shall  ap;"ain  rise, 
you  will  find  me  standing  firm  in  defence  of  that 
principle,  and  fighting  whoever  fights  it.  If  Mr. 
Buchanan  stands,  as  I  doubt  not  he  will,  by  the 
recommendation  contained  in  his  Message,  that  here-  5 
after  all  State  constitutions  ought  to  be  submitted 
to  the  people  before  the  admission  of  the  State  into 
the  Union,  he  will  find  me  standing  by  him  firmly, 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  in  carrying  it  out.  I  know 
Mr.  Lincoln's  object:  he  wants  to  divide  the  Demo-  lo 
cratic  party,  in  order  that  he  may  defeat  me  and  get 
to  the  Senate. 

[Mr.    Douglas's    time    here    expired,    and    he 
stopped  on  the  moment.] 


MR.   LINCOLN'S   REJOINDER  ^5 

My  Friends:  It  will  readily  occur  to  you  that 
I  cannot,  in  half  an  hour,  notice  all  the  things  that 
so  able  a  man  as  Judge  Douglas  can  say  in  an  hour 
and  a  half;  and  I  hope,  therefore,  if  there  be  any- 
thing that  he  said  upon  which  you  would  like  to  hear  20 
something  from  me,  but  which  I  omit  to  comment 
upon,  you  will  bear  in  mind  that  it  would  be  expect- 
ing an  impossibility  for  me  to  go  over  his  whole 
ground.  I  can  but  take  up  some  of  the  points  that 
he  has  dwelt  upon,  and  employ  my  half-hour  spe-  25 
cially  on  them. 

The  first  thing  I  have  to  say  to  you  is  a  word  in 


68  JOIST  DEBATE   AT   FREEPORT 

regard  to  Judge  Douglas's  declaration  about  the 
**  ^-lllgarit\-  and  blackguardism  "  in  the  audience, — 
that  no  such  thing  as  he  says,  was  shown  by  anv 
Danocrat  while  I  was  speaking.  Xow,  I  onlv  wish, 
5  by  way  of  reply  on  this  subject,  to  say  that  while  / 
was  speaking,  /  used  no  "  ^*ulgarit^^  or  black- 
guardism "  toward  any  Democrat. 

Xow,  my  friends,  I  come  to  all  this  long  portion 
of  the  Judge's  speech, — ^perhaps  half  of  it, — which 

lo  he  has  devoted  to  the  various  resolutions  and  plat- 
forms that  have  been  adopted  in  the  different 
counties  in  the  different  Congressional  Districts,  and 
in  the  Illinois  Legislature,  which  he  supposes  are 
at  variance  with  the  positions  I  have  assimied  before 

^5  you  to-day.  It  is  true  that  many  of  these  resolu- 
tions are  at  variance  with  the  positions  I  have  here 
assimied.  All  I  have  to  ask  is  that  we  talk  reason- 
ably and  rationally  about  it.  I  happen  to  know,  the 
Judge's  opinion  to   the   contrary-   notAvithstanding, 

^  that  I  have  never  tried  to  conceal  my  opinions,  nor 
tried  to  deceive  anyone  in  reference  to  them.  He 
may  go  and  examine  all  the  mxcmbers  who  voted  for 
me  for  United  States  Senator  in  1855,  ^^^^i"  ^^^  elec- 
tion of  1854.     They  were  pledged  to  certain  things 

25  here  at  home,  and  were  determined  to  have  pledges 
from  me;  and  if  he  \s-ill  find  any  of  these  persons 
who  will  tell  him  an}-thing  inconsistent  with  what  I 
say  now,  I  will  resign,  or  rather  retire  from  the 
race,  and  give  him  no  more  trouble.     The  plain 

30  truth  is  this : 

At  the  introduction  of  the  Nebraska  policy,  we 


MR.   LIXCOLX'S  REJOIXDER  69 

believed  there  was  a  new  era  being  introduced  in 
the  history  of  the  Repubhc  which  tended  to  the 
spread  and  perpetuation  of  slaver\-.  But  in  our 
opposition  to  that  measure  we  did  not  agree  with 
one  another  in  everything.  The  people  in  the  north  5 
end  of  the  State  were  for  stronger  measures  of 
opposition  than  we  of  the  central  and  southern  por- 
tions of  the  State,  but  we  were  all  opposed  to  the 
Nebraska  doctrine.  We  had  that  one  feeling  and 
that  one  sentiment  in  common.  You  at  the  north  10 
end  met  in  your  Conventions  and  passed  your  reso- 
lutions. W'e  in  the  middle  of  the  State  and  further 
south  did  not  hold  such  Conventions  and  pass  the 
same  resolutions,  although  we  had  in  general  a  com- 
mon view  and  a  common  sentiment.  So  that  these  15 
meetings  which  the  Judge  has  alluded  to,  and  the 
resolutions  he  has  read  from,  were  local,  and  did 
not  spread  over  the  whole  State.  We  at  last  met 
together  in  1856,  from  all  parts  of  the  State,  and  we 
agreed  upon  a  common  platform.  You,  who  held  20 
more  extreme  notions,  either  yielded  those  notions, 
or,  if  not  wholly  yielding  them,  agreed  to  yield  them 
practically,  for  the  sake  of  embodying  the  opposition 
to  the  measures  which  the  opposite  party  were  push- 
ing forward  at  that  time.  We  met  you  then,  and  if  25 
there  was  anything  yielded,  it  was  for  practical  pur- 
poses. We  agreed  then  upon  a  platfomi  for  the 
party  throughout  the  entire  State  of  Illinois,  and 
now  we  are  all  bound,  as  a  party,  to  that  platform. 
And  I  say  here  to  you.  if  any  one  expects  of  me — in  3° 
the  case  of  my  election — that  I  will  do  anything  not 


70  JOINT  DEBATE  AT  FREEPORT 

signified  by  our  Republican  platform  and  my  an- 
swers here  to-day,  I  tell  you  very  frankly  that  per- 
son will  be  deceived.  I  do  not  ask  for  the  vote  of 
any  one  who  supposes  that  I  have  secret  purposes 
5  or  pledges  that  I  dare  not  speak  out.  Cannot  the 
Judge  be  satisfied?  If  he  fears,  in  the  unfortunate 
case  of  my  election,  that  my  going  to  Washington 
will  enable  me  to  advocate  sentiments  contrary  to 
those  which  I  expressed  when  you  voted  for  and 

lo  elected  me,  I  assure  him  that  his  fears  are  wholly 
needless  and  groundless.  Is  the  Judge  really  afraid 
of  any  such  thing?  I'll  tell  you  what  he  is  afraid  of. 
He  is  afraid  we'll  all  pull  together.  This  is  what 
alarms  him  more  than  anything  else.    For  my  part, 

15  I  do  hope  that  all  of  us,  entertaining  a  common  sen- 
timent in  opposition  to  what  appears  to  us  a  design 
to  nationalize  and  perpetuate  slavery,  will  waive 
minor  differences  on  questions  which  either  belong 
to  the  dead  past  or  the  distant  future,  and  all  pull 

20  together  in  this  strug'gle.  What  are  your  senti- 
ments? If  it  be  true  that  on  the  ground  which  I 
occupy — ground  which  I  occupy  as  frankly  and 
boldly  as  Judge  Douglas  does  his, — my  views, 
though  partly  coinciding  with  yours,  are  not  as  per- 

25  fectly  in  accordance  with  your  feelings  as  his  are, 
I  do  say  to  you  in  all  candor,  go  for  him,  and  not 
for  me.  I  hope  to  deal  in  all  things  fairly  with 
Judge  Douglas,  and  with  the  people  of  the  State, 
in  this  contest.    And  if  I  should  never  be  elected  to 

30  any  office,  I  trust  I  may  go  down  with  no  stain  of 
falsehood  upon  my  reputation,  notwithstanding  the 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REJOINDER  71 

hard  opinions  Judge  Douglas  chooses  to  entertain  of 
me.  The  Judge  has  again  addressed  himself  to  the 
Abolition  tendencies  of  a  speech  of  mine  made  at 
Springfield  in  June  last.  I  have  so  often  tried  to 
answer  what  he  is  always  saying  on  that  melancholy  5 
theme  that  I  almost  turn  with  disgust  from  the  dis- 
cussion,— from  the  repetition  of  an  answer  to  it.  I 
trust  that  nearly  all  of  this  intelligent  audience  have 
read  that  speech.  If  you  have,  I  may  venture  to 
leave  it  to  you  to  inspect  it  closely,  and  see  whether  10 
it  contains  any  of  those  "  bugaboos  "  which  frighten 
Judge  Douglas. 

The  Judge  complains  that  I  did  not  fully  answer 
his  questions.     If  I  have  the  sense  to  comprehend 
and  answer  those  questions,  I  have  done  so  fairly.   15 
If  it  can  be  pointed  out  to  me  how  I  can  more  fully 
and  fairly  answer  him,  I  aver  I  have  not  the  sense 
to  see  how  it  is  to  be  done.     He  says,  I  do  not  de- 
clare I  would  in  any  event  vote  for  the  admission  of 
a  Slave  State  into  the  Union.    If  I  have  been  fairly  20 
reported,  he  will  see  that  I  did  give  an  explicit  an- 
swer to  his  interrogatories ;  I  did  not  merely  say 
that  I  would  dislike  to  be  put  to  the  test,  but  I  said 
clearly,  if  I  were  put  to  the  test,  and  a  Territor}' 
from  which  slavery  had  been  excluded  should  pre-  25 
sent  herself  with  a   State  constitution  sanctioning 
slavery, — a  most  extraordinary  thing,  and   wholly 
unlikely  to  happen, — I  did  not  see  how  I  could  avoid 
voting  for  her  admission.    But  he  refuses  to  under- 
stand that  I  said  so,  and  he  wants  this  audience  to  3^ 
understand  that  I  did  not  say  so.    Yet  it  will  be  so 


^2  JOINT   DEBATE   AT   FREEPORT 

reported  in  the  printed  speech  that  he  cannot  help 
seeing  it. 

He  says  if  I  should  vote  for  the  admission  of  a 
Slave  State  I  would  be  voting  for  a  dissolution  of 
5  the  Union,  because  I  hold  that  the  Union  cannot 
permanently  exist  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  repeat 
that  I  do  not  believe  this  government  can  endure 
permanently  half  slave  and  half  free;  yet  I  do  not 
admit,  nor  does  it  all  follow,  that  the  admission  of 

lo  a  single  Slave  State  will  permanently  fix  the  char- 
acter and  establish  this  as  a  universal  slave  nation. 
The  Judge  is  very  happy  indeed  at  working  up  these 
quibbles.  Before  leaving  the  subject  of  answering 
questions,  I  aver  as  my  confident  belief,  when  you 

15  come  to  see  our  speeches  in  print,  that  you  will  find 
every  question  which  he  has  asked  me  more  fairly 
and  boldly  and  fully  answered  than  he  has  answered 
those  which  I  put  to  him.  Is  not  that  so  ?  The  two 
speeches  may  be  placed  side  by  side,  and  I  will  ven- 

20  ture  to  leave  it  to  impartial  judges  whether  his  ques- 
tions have  not  been  more  directly  and  circumstan- 
tially answered  than  mine. 

Judge  Douglas  says  he  made  a  charge  upon  the 
editor  of  the  Washington  "  Union,"  alone,  of  enter- 

25  taining  a  purpose  to  rob  the  States  of  their  power 
to  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits.  I  undertake  to 
say,  and  I  make  the  direct  issue,  that  he  did  not 
make  his  charge  against  the  editor  of  the  *'  Union  " 
alone.    I  will  undertake  to  prove  by  the  record  here 

30  that  he  made  that  charge  against  more  and  higher 
dignitaries    than    the    editor    of    the    Washington 


MR.   LIXCOLX'S   REJOIXDER  73 

"  Union."  I  am  quite  aware  that  he  was  shirking 
and  dodging  around  the  form  in  which  he  put  it, 
but  I  can  make  it  manifest  that  he  leveled  his  "  fatal 
blow  "  against  more  persons  than  this  Washington 
editor.  Will  he  dodge  it  now  by  alleging  that  I  am  5 
trying  to  defend  Mr.  Buchanan  against  the  charge? 
Not  at  all.  Am  I  not  making  the  same  charge  my- 
self ?  I  am  trying  to  show  that  you,  Judge  Douglas, 
are  a  witness  on  my  side.  I  am  not  defending  Bu- 
chanan, and  I  will  tell  Judge  Douglas  that  in  my  10 
opinion,  when  he  made  that  charge,  he  had  an  eye 
farther  north  than  he  was  to-day.  He  was  then 
fighting  against  people  who  called  him  a  Black  Re- 
publican and  an  Abolitionist.  It  is  mixed  all  through 
his  speech,  and  it  is  tolerably  manifest  that  his  eye  15 
was  a  great  deal  farther  north  than  it  is  to-day. 
The  Judge  says  that  though  he  made  this  charge, 
Toombs  got  up  and  declared  there  was  not  a  man  in 
the  United  States,  except  the  editor  of  the  "  Union," 
who  was  in  favor  of  the  doctrines  put  forth  in  that  20 
article.  And  thereupon  I  understand  that  the  Judge 
withdrew  the  charge.  Although  he  had  taken  ex- 
tracts from  the  newspaper,  and  then  from  the  Le- 
compton  Constitution,  to  show  the  existence  of  a 
conspiracy  to  bring  about  a  "  fatal  blow,"  by  which  25 
the  States  were  to  be  deprived  of  the  right  of  ex- 
cluding slavery,  it  all  went  to  pot  as  soon  as  Toombs 
got  up  and  told  him  it  was  not  true.  It  reminds  me 
of  the  story  that  John  Phoenix,  the  California  rail- 
road surveyor,  tells.  He  says  they  started  out  from  30 
the  Plaza  to  the  Mission  of  Dolores.    They  had  two 


74  JOINT    DEBATE   AT   FREEPORT 

ways  of  determining  distances.  One  was  by  a  chain 
and  pins  taken  over  the  ground.  The  other  was  by 
a  "  go-it-ometer," — an  invention  of  his  own, — a 
three-legged  instrument,  with  which  he  computed  a 

5  series  of  triangles  between  the  points.  At  night  he 
turned  to  the  chainman  to  ascertain  what  distance 
they  had  come,  and  found  that  by  some  mistake  he 
had  merely  dragged  the  chain  over  the  ground, 
without  keeping  any  record.  By  the  "  go-it-ometer  " 

lo  he  found  he  had  made  ten  miles.  Being  skeptical 
about  this,  he  asked  a  drayman  who  was  passing 
how  far  it  was  to  the  Plaza.  The  drayman  replied 
it  was  just  half  a  mile;  and  the  surveyor  put  it 
down  in  his  book, — just  as  Judge  Douglas  says, 

15  after  he  had  made  his  calculations  and  computa- 
tions, he  took  Toombs's  statement.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  after  Judge  Douglas  had  made  his  charge,  he 
was  as  easily  satisfied  about  its  truth  as  the  sur- 
veyor was  of  the  drayman's  statement  of  the  dis- 

20  tance  to  the  Plaza.  Yet  it  is  a  fact  that  the  man 
who  put  forth  all  that  matter  which  Douglas 
deemed  a  *'  fatal  blow  "  at  State  sovereignty,  was 
elected  by  the  Democrats  as  public  printer. 

Now,  gentlemen,  you  may  take  Judge  Douglas's 

25  speech  of  March  22,  1858,  beginning  about  the 
middle  of  page  21,  and  reading  to  the  bottom  of 
page  24,  and  you  will  find  the  evidence  on  which  I 
say  that  he  did  not  make  his  charge  against  the 
editor  of  the  "  Union "  alone.     I  cannot  stop  to 

30  read  it,  but  I  will  give  it  to  the  reporters.  Judge 
Douglas  said ; 


MR.   LINCOLN'S   REJOINDER  75 

"  Mr.  President,  you  here  find  several  distinct  propo- 
sitions advanced  boldly  by  the  Washington  *  Union ' 
editorially,  and  apparently  authoritatively,  and  every 
man  who  questions  any  of  them  is  denounced  as  an 
Abolitionist,  a  Free-soiler,  a  fanatic.  The  propositions  5 
are,  first,  that  the  primary  object  of  all  government  at 
its  original  institution  is  the  protection  of  persons  and 
property ;  second,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  declares  that  the  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be 
entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens  in  lo 
the  several  States;  and  that,  therefore,  thirdly,  all  State 
laws,  wdiether  organic  or  otherwise,  which  prohibit  the 
citizens  of  one  State  from  settling  in  another  with  their 
slave  property,  and  especially  declaring  it  forfeited,  are 
direct  violations  of  the  original  intention  of  the  Govern-  15 
ment  and  Constitution  of  the  United  States;  and,  fourth, 
that  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  of  the  Northern 
States  was  a  gross  outrage  on  the  rights  of  property, 
inasmuch  as  it  was  involuntarily  done  on  the  part  of 
the  owner.  ^^ 

"  Remember  that  this  article  was  published  in  the 
'Union'  on  the  17th  of  November,  and  on  the  i8th 
appeared  the  first  article,  giving  the  adhesion  of  the 
*  Union '  to  the  Lecompton  Constitution.  It  was  in 
these  words:  ^5 

"  *  Kansas  and  her  Constitution. — The  vexed  ques- 
tion is  settled.  The  problem  is  solved.  The  dead  point 
of  danger  is  passed.  All  serious  trouble  to  Kansas 
affairs  is  over  and  gone — * 

"  And   a   column,   nearly  of  the   same   sort.     Then,  30 
when  you  come  to  look  into  the  Lecompton  Constitu- 
tion, you  find  the  same  doctrine  incorporated  in  it  which 
was  put  forth  editorially  in  the  'Union.'     What  is  it? 

***  Article  7,  Section  i.    The  right  of  property  is 


'j^  JOINT   DEBATE   AT   FREEPORT 

before  and  higher  than  any  constitutional  sanction; 
and  the  right  of  the  owner  of  a  slave  to  such  slave  and 
its  increase  is  the  same  and  as  invariable  as  the  right 
of  the  owner  of  any  property  whatever.' 

5  "  Then  in  the  schedule  is  a  provision  that  the  Con- 
stitution may  be  amended  after  1864  by  a  two-thirds 
vote. 

"  *  But  no  alteration  shall  be  made  to  affect  the  right 
of  property  in  the  ownership  of  slaves.' 

10       "  It  wnll  be  seen  by  these  clauses  in  the  Lecompton 

Constitution  that  they  are  identical  in  spirit  with  this 

authoritative  article  in  the  Washington  *  Union '  of  the 

day  previous  to  its  indorsement  of  this  Constitution. 

"  When  I  saw  that  article  in  the  *  Union '  of  the  17th 

15  of  November,  followed  by  the  glorification  of  the  Le- 
compton Constitution  on  the  i8th  of  November,  and  this 
clause  in  the  Constitution  asserting  the  doctrine  that 
a  State  has  no  right  to  prohibit  slavery  within  its 
limits,  I  saw  that  there  was  a  fatal  blow  being  struck 

20  at  the  sovereignty  of  the  States  of  this  Union." 

Here  he  says,  "  Mr.  President,  you  here  find  sev- 
eral distinct  propositions  advanced  boldly,  and  ap- 
parently authoritatively."  'By  whose  authority, 
Judge  Douglas?    Again,  he  says  in  another  place, 

25   "  It  will  be  seen  by  these  clauses  in  the  Lecompton 
Constitution  that  they  are  identical  in  spirit  with 
this   authoritative    article."    By   whose   authority? 
\^'ho  do  you  mean  to  say  authorized  the  publica- 
tion of  these  articles  ?  He  knows  that  the  AVashing- 

-^o  ton  "  Union "  is  considered  the  organ  of  the 
Administration.  /  demand  of  Judge  Douglas  hy 
whose  authority  he  meant  to  say  those  articles  were 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REJOINDER  77 

published,  if  not  by  the  authority  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States  and  his  Cabinet?  I  defy  him 
to  show  whom  he  referred  to,  if  not  to  these  high 
functionaries  in  the  Federal  Government.  More 
than  this,  he  says  the  articles  in  that  paper  and  the  5 
provisions  of  the  Lecompton  Constitution  are  "  iden- 
tical," and,  being  identical,  he  argues  that  the 
authors  are  co-operating  and  conspiring  together. 
He  does  not  use  the  word  "  conspiring,"  but  what 
other  construction  can  you  put  upon  it?  He  winds  lo 
up  with  this : 

"  When  I  saw  that  article  in  the  *  Union '  of  the  17th 
of  November,  followed  by  the  glorification  of  the  Le- 
compton Constitution  on  the  iSth  of  November,  and  this 
clause  in  the  Constitution  asserting  the  doctrine  that  a  15 
State  has  no  right  to  prohibit  slavery  within  its  limits, 
I  saw  that  there  was  a  fatal  blozu  being  struck  at  the 
sovereignty  of  the  States  of  the  Union." 

I  ask  him  if  all  this  fuss  was  made  over  the 
editor  of  this  newspaper.  It  would  be  a  terribly  20 
'*  fatal  blow "  indeed  which  a  single  man  could 
strike,  when  no  President,  no  Cabinet  officer,  no 
member  of  Congress,  was  giving  strength  and  effi- 
ciency to  the  moment.  Out  of  respect  to  Judge 
Douglas's  good  sense  I  must  believe  he  didn't  man-  ^5 
ufacture  his  idea  of  the  "fatal  "  character  of  that 
blow  out  of  such  a  miserable  scapegrace  as  he 
represents  that  editor  to  be.  But  the  Judge's  eye 
is  farther  south  now.  Then,  it  was  very  peculiarly 
and  decidedly  north.     His  hope  rested  on  the  idea  ^° 


^8  JOINT  DEBATE   AT  FREEPORT 

of  visiting  the  great  "  Black  Republican "  party, 
and  making  it  the  tail  of  his  new  kite.  He  knows 
he  was  then  expecting  from  day  to  day  to  turn  Re- 
publican,  and   place   himself   at   the   head   of   our 

5  organization.  He  has  found  that  these  despised 
"  Black  Republicans  "  estimate  him  by  a  standard 
which  he  has  taught  them  none  too  well.  Hence  he 
is  crawling  back  into  his  old  camp,  and  you  will 
find    him    eventually    installed    in    full    fellowship 

lo  among  those  whom  he  was  then  battling,  and  with 
whom  he  now  pretends  to  be  at  such  fearful  va- 
riance. [Loud  applause,  and  cries  of  "  Go  on,  go 
on."J    I  cannot,  gentlemen ;  my  time  has  expired. 


gittb  5oint  Debate,  at  Galesburab 

[October  7,  1858] 

MR.    DOUGLAS'S    SPEECH 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  Four  years  ago  I 
appeared  before  the  people  of  Knox  County  for  the  5 
purpose  of  defending  my  poHtical  action  upon  the 
Compromise  Measures  of  1850  and  the  passage  of 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill.  Those  of  you  before  me 
who  were  present  then  will  remember  that  I  vindi- 
cated myself  for  supporting  those  two  measures  by  10 
the  fact  that  they  rested  upon  the  great  fundamental 
principle  that  the  people  of  each  State  and  Territory 
of  this  Union  have  the  right,  and  ought  to  be  per- 
mitted to  exercise  the  right,  of  regulating  their  own 
domestic  concerns  in  their  own  way,  subject  to  15 
no  other  limitation  or  restriction  than  that  which 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  imposes  upon 
them.  I  then  called  upon  the  people  of  Illinois  to 
decide  whether  that  principle  of  self-government 
was  right  or  wrong.  If  it  was  and  is  right,  then  20 
the  Compromise  Measures  of  1850  were  right,  and 
consequently,  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill,  based 
upon  the  same  principle,  must  necessarily  have  been 
right. 

The   Kansas   and   Nebraska  bill   declared,   in   so  25 

79 


8o     FIFTH  JOIXT  DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

many  words,  that  it  was  the  true  intent  and  meaning 
of  the  Act  not  to  legislate  slaven'  into  any  State  or 
Territor}-,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave 
the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regu- 
5  late  their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way, 
subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  For  the  last  four  years  I  have  devoted  all 
my  energies,  in  private  and  public,  to  commend  that 
principle  to  the  American  people.     Whatever  else 

^°  may  be  said  in  condemnation  or  support  of  my  polit- 
ical course,  I  apprehend  that  no  honest  man  will 
doubt  the  fidelity  with  which,  under  all  circum- 
stances, I  have  stood  by  it. 

During  the  last  year  a  question  arose  in  the  Con- 

15  gress  of  the  United  States  whether  or  not  that  prin- 
ciple would  be  violated  by  the  admission  of  Kansas 
into  the  Union  under  the  Lecompton  Constitution. 
In  my  opinion,  the  attempt  to  force  Kansas  in  under 
that  constitution  was  a  gross  violation  of  the  prin- 

20  ciple  enunciated  in  the  Compromise  Measures  of 
1850,  and  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  of  1854,  and 
therefore  I  led  off  in  the  fight  against  the  Lecomp- 
ton Constitution,  and  conducted  it  until  the  effort 
to  carry   that  constitution  through   Congress   was 

25  abandoned.  And  I  can  appeal  to  all  men,  friends 
and  foes,  Democrats  and  Republicans,  Northern 
men  and  Southern  men,  that  during  the  whole  of 
that  fight  I  carried  the  banner  of  Popular  Sover- 
eignty^ aloft,  and  never  allowed  it  to  trail  in  the 

30  dust,  nor  lowered  my  flag  until  victor}'  perched  upon 
our  arms.    When  the  Lecompton  Constitution  was 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  8l 

defeated,  the  question  arose  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  had  advocated  it  what  they  should  next  resort 
to  in  order  to  carn»-  out  their  views.    They  devised 
a  measure  known  as  the  EngHsh  bill,  and  granted"  a 
general  amnesty  and  political  pardon  to  all  men  who     5 
had  fought  against  the  Lecompton  Constitution,  pro- 
vided they  would  support  that  bill.     I  for  one  did 
not  choose  to  accept  the  pardon,  or  to  avail  myself 
of  the  amnesty  granted  on  that  condition.    The  fact 
that  the  supporters  of  Lecompton  were  willing  to  lo 
forgive  all  diflFerences  of  opinion  at  that  time  in  the 
event  those   who   opposed   it   favored  the  English 
bill,  was  an  admission  they  did  not  think  that  oppo- 
sition to  Lecompton  impaired  a  man's  standing  in 
the  Democratic  party.     Xow,  the  question  arises,   15 
what  was  that  English  bill  which  certain  men  are 
now  attempting  to  make  a  test  of  political  orthodoxy 
in  this  country  ?     It  provided,  in  substance,  that  the 
Lecompton  Constitution  should  be  sent  back  to  the 
people  of  Kansas  for  their  adoption  or  rejection,  at  20 
an  election  which  was  held  in  August  last,  and  in 
case  they  refused  admission  under  it,  that  Kansas 
should  be  kept  out  of  the  L'nion  until  she  had  93420 
inhabitants.     I  was  in  favor  of  sending  the  consti- 
tution back  in  order  to  enable  the  people  to  say   25 
whether  or  not  it  was  their  act  and  deed,  and  em- 
bodied their  will;  but  the  other  proposition,  that  if 
they  refused  to  come  into  the  L'nion  under  it,  they 
should  be  kept  out  until  they  had  double  or  treble 
the  population  they  then  had,  I  never  would  sane-   3© 
tion   by   my   vote.     The   reason   why   I   could  not 


82      FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE  AT   GALESBURGH    . 

sanction  It  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  by  the 
Enghsh  bill,  if  the  people  of  Kansas  had  only  agreed 
to  become  a  slaveholding  State  under  the  Lecomp- 
ton  Constitution,  they  could  have  done  so  with 
5  35,000  people,  but  if  they  insisted  on  being  a  Free 
State,  as  they  had  a  right  to  do,  then  they  were  to 
be  punished  by  being  kept  out  of  the  Union  until 
they  had  nearly  three  times  that  population.  I  then 
said  in  my  place  in  the  Senate,  as  I  now  say  to  you, 

lo  that  whenever  Kansas  has  population  enough  for  a 
Slave  State  she  has  population  enough  for  a  Free 
State.  I  have  never  yet  given  a  vote,  and  I  never 
intend  to  record  one,  making  an  odious  and  unjust 
distinction    between    the    different    States    of    this 

15  Union.  I  hold  it  to  be  a  fundamental  principle  in 
our  republican  form  of  government  that  all  the 
States  of  this  Union,  old  and  new,  free  and  slave, 
stand  on  an  exact  equality.  Equality  among  the 
different  States  is  a  cardinal  principle  on  which  all 

20  our  institutions  rest.  Wherever,  therefore,  you 
make  a  discrimination,  saying  to  a  Slave  State  that 
it  shall  be  admitted  with  35,000  inhabitants,  and  a 
Free  State  that  it  shall  not  be  admitted  until  it  has 
93,000  or  100,000  inhabitants,  you  are  throwing  the 

25  whole  weight  of  the  Federal  Government  into  the 
scale  in  favor  of  one  class  of  States  against  the  other. 
Nor  would  I  on  the  other  hand  any  sooner  sanction 
the  doctrine  that  a  Free  State  could  be  admitted 
into  the  Union  with  35,000  people,  while  a  Slave 

30  State  was  kept  out  until  it  had  93,000.  I  have 
always  declared  in  the  Senate  my  willingness,  and 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  83 

I  am  willing-  now  to  adopt  the  rule,  that  no  Terri- 
tory shall  ever  become  a  State  until  it  has  the 
requisite  population  for  a  member  of  Congress, 
according  to  the  then  existing  ratio.  But  while  I 
have  always  been,  and  am  now,  willing  to  adopt  5 
that  general  rule,  I  was  not  willing  and  would  not 
consent  to  make  an  exception  of  Kansas,  as  a  pun- 
ishment for  her  obstinacy  in  demanding  the  right 
to  do  as  she  pleased  in  the  formation  of  her  consti- 
tution. It  is  proper  that  I  should  remark  here,  that  ^° 
my  opposition  to  the  Lecompton  Constitution  did 
not  rest  upon  the  peculiar  position  taken  by  Kansas 
on  the  subject  of  slavery.  I  held  then,  and  hold 
now,  that  if  the  people  of  Kansas  want  a  Slave 
State,  it  is  their  right  to  make  one,  and  be  received  15 
into  the  Union  under  it;  if,  on  the  contrary,  they 
want  a  Free  State,  it  is  their  right  to  have  it,  and 
no  man  should  ever  oppose  their  admission  because 
they  ask  it  under  the  one  or  the  other.  I  hold  to 
that  great  principle  of  self-government  which  as-  20 
serts  the  right  of  every  people  to  decide  for  them- 
selves the  nature  and  character  of  the  domestic 
institutions  and  fundamental  law  under  which  they 
are  to  live. 

The  effort  has  been  and  is  now  being  made  in  this  ^^ 
State  by  certain  postmasters  and  other  Federal 
office-holders  to  make  a  test  of  faith  on  the  support 
of  the  English  bill.  These  men  are  now  making 
speeches  all  over  the  State  against  me  and  in  favor 
of  Lincoln,  cither  directly  or  indirectly,  because  I  ^^ 
would  not  sanction  a  discrimination  between  Slave 


84     FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE  AT   GALESBURGH 

and  Free  States  by  voting  for  the  English  bill.  But 
while  that  bill  is  made  a  test  in  Illinois  for  the  pur- 
pose of  breaking  up  the  Democratic  organization- 
in  this  State,  how  is  it  in  the  other  States  ?  Go  to 
5  Indiana,  and  there  you  find  English  himself,  the 
author  of  the  English  bill,  who  is  a  candidate  for 
re-election  to  Congress,  has  been  forced  by  public 
opinion  to  abandon  his  own  darling  project,  and  to 
give  a  promise  that  he  will  vote  for  the  admission 

lo  of  Kansas  at  once,  whenever  she  forms  a  constitu- 
tion in  pursuance  of  law,  and  ratifies  it  by  a  ma- 
jority vote  of  her  people.  Not  only  is  this  the  case 
with  English  himself^  but  I  am  informed  that  every 
Democratic  candidate  for  Congress  in  Indiana  takes 

15  the  same  ground.  Pass  to  Ohio,  and  there  you  find 
that  Groesbeck,  and  Pendleton,  and  Cox,  and  all  the 
other  anti-Lecompton  men  who  stood  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  me  against  the  Lecompton  Constitu- 
tion, but  voted  for  the  English  bill,  now  repudiate 

20  it  and  take  the  same  ground  that  I  do  on  that  ques- 
tion. So  it  is  with  the  Joneses  and  others  of  Penn- 
sylvania, and  so  it  is  with  every  other  Lecompton 
Democrat  in  the  Free  States.  They  now  abandon 
even  the  English  bill,  and  come  back  to  th€  true 

25  platform  which  I  proclaimed  at  the  tin>e  in  the 
Senate,  and  upon  which  the  Democracy  of  Illinois 
now  stand.  And  yet,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
every  Lecompton  and  anti-Lecompton  Democrat 
in  the  Free  States  has  abandoned  the  English  bill, 

30  you  are  told  that  it  is  to  be  made  a  test  upon  me, 
while  the  power  and  patronage  of  the  Government 


MR.    DOUGLAS'S   SPEECH  85 

are  all  exerted  to  elect  men  to  Con.c^ress  In  the  other 
States  who  occupy  the  same  position  with  reference 
to  it  that  I  do.  It  seems  that  my  political  offence 
consists  in  the  fact  that  I  first  did  not  vote  for  the 
Enp;-lish  bill,  and  thus  pledge  myself  to  keep  Kansas  5 
out  of  the  Union  until  she  has  a  population  of 
93,420,  and  then  return  home,  violate  that  pledge, 
repudiate  the  bill,  and  take  the  opposite  ground.  If 
I  had  done  this,  perhaps  the  Administration  would 
now  be  advocating  my  re-election,  as  it  is  that  of  the  10 
others  who  have  pursued  this  course.  I  did  not 
choose  to  give  that  pledge,  for  the  reason  that  I 
did  not  intend  to  carry  out  that  principle.  I  never 
will  consent,  for  the  sake  of  conciliating  the  frowns 
of  power,  to  pledge  myself  to  do  that  which  I  do  15 
not  intend  to  perform.  I  now  submit  the  question 
to  you,  as  my  constituency,  whether  I  was  not  right, 
first,  in  resisting  the  adoption  of  the  Lecompton 
Constitution,  and,  secondly,  in  resisting  the  English 
bill.  I  repeat  that  I  opposed  the  Lecompton  Consti-  20 
tution  because  it  was  not  the  act  and  deed  of  the 
people  of  Kansas,  and  did  not  embody  their  will.  I 
denied  the  right  of  any  power  on  earth,  under  our 
system  of  government,  to  force  a  constitution  on 
an  unwilling  people.  There  was  a  time  when  some  25 
men  could  pretend  to  believe  that  the  Lecompton 
Constitution  embodied  the  will  of  the  people  of 
Kansas;  but  that  time  has  passed.  The  question 
was  referred  to  the  people  of  Kansas  under  the 
English  bill  last  August,  and  then,  at  a  fair  election,  30 
they  rejected  the  Lecompton  Constitution  by  a  vote 


86      FIFTH   JOIXT   DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

of  from  eight  to  ten  against  it  to  one  in  its  favor. 
Since  it  has  been  voted  down  by  so  overwhelming 
a  majority,  no  man  can  pretend  that  it  was  the  act 
and  deed  of  that  people,  I  submit  the  question  to 
5  you  whether  or  not,  if  it  had  not  been  for  me,  that 
constitution  would  have  been  crammed  down  the 
throats  of  the  people  of  Kansas  against  their  con- 
sent. \\'hile  at  least  ninety-nine  out  of  every  hun- 
dred people  here  present  agree  that  I  was  right  in 

ic»  defeating  that  project,  yet  my  enemies  use  the  fact 
that  I  did  defeat  it  by  doing  right,  to  break  me  down 
and  put  another  man  in  the  United  States  Senate  in 
my  place.  The  very  men  who  acknowledge  that  I 
was   right  in   defeating   Lecompton  now   form   an 

15  alliance  with  Federal  office-holders,  professed  Le- 
compton men,  to  defeat  me,  because  I  did  right, 
^ly  political  opponent,  ^Ir.  Lincoln,  has  no  hope  on 
earth,  and  has  never  dreamed  that  he  had  a  chance 
of  success,  were  it  not  for  the  aid  that  he  is  receiv- 

20  ing  from  Federal  office-holders,  who  are  using  their 
influence  and  the  patronage  of  the  Government 
against  me  in  revenge  for  my  having  defeated  the 
Lecompton  Constitution.  A\^hat  do  you  Republi- 
cans think  of  a  political  organization  that  wall  try 

25  to  make  an  unholy  and  unnatural  combination  with 
its  professed  foes  to  beat  a  man  merely  because  he 
has  done  right?  You  know  such  is  the  fact  with 
regard  to  your  own  party.  You  know  that  the  axe 
of   decapitation   is   suspended   over   every   man   in 

30  office  in  Illinois,  and  the  terror  of  proscription  is 
threatened  every  Democrat  by  the  present  Adminis- 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  87 

tration,  unless  he  supports  the  Republican  ticket  in 
preference  to  my  Democratic  associates  and  myself. 
I  could  find  an  instance  in  the  postmaster  of  the 
city  of  Galesburgh,  and  in  every  other  postmaster  in 
this  vicinity,  all  of  whom  have  been  stricken  down  5 
simply  because  they  discharged  the  duties  of  their 
offices  honestly,  and  supported  the  regular  Demo- 
cratic ticket  in  this  State  in  the  right.  The  Repub- 
lican party  is  availing  itself  of  unworthy  means  in 
the  present  contest  to  carry  the  election,  because  10 
its  leaders  know  that  if  they  let  this  chance  slip 
they  will  never  have  another,  and  their  hopes  of 
making  this  a  Republican  State  will  be  blasted 
forever. 

Now,  let  me  ask  you  whether  the  country  has   15 
any  interest  in  sustaining  this  organization,  known 
as  the  Republican  party.     That  party  is  unlike  all 
other  political  organizations  in  this  country.     All 
other  parties  have  been  national  in  their  character, 
— have  avowed  their  principles  alike  in  the  Slave   20 
and  Free  States,  in  Kentucky  as  well  as  Illinois,  in 
Louisiana  as  well  as  in  Massachusetts.    Such  was 
the  case  with  the  old  Whig  party,  and  such  was  and 
is  the  case  with  the  Democratic  party.     Whigs  and 
Democrats   could   proclaim   their   principles   boldly    25 
and  fearlessly  in  the  North  and  in  the  South,  in  the 
East  and   in  the  West,  wherever  the  Constitution 
ruled,  and  the  American  flag  waved  over  American 
soil. 

But  now   you   have   a   sectional   organization,   a   30 
party  which  appeals  to  the  Northern  section  of  the 


88      FIFTH   JOIXT   DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

Union  against  the  Southern,  a  party  which  appeals 
to  Northern  passion,  Northern  pride.  Northern  am- 
bition and  Northern  prejudices,  against  Southern 
people,  the  Southern  States,  and  Southern  institu- 
5  tions.  The  leaders  of  that  party  hope  that  they  will 
be  able  to  unite  the  Northern  States  in  one  great 
sectional  party;  and  inasmuch  as  the  North  is  the 
stronsfer  section,  that  thev  will  thus  be  enabled  to 
out-vote,  conquer,  govern  and  control  the   South. 

lo  Hence  you  find  that  they  now  make  speeches  advo- 
cating principles  and  measures  which  cannot  be 
defended  in  any  slaveholding  State  of  this  Union. 
Is  there  a  Republican  residing  in  Galesburgh  who 
can  travel  into  Kentucky  and  earn*  his  principles 

15  with  him  across  the  Ohio?  \\'hat  Republican  from 
^lassachusetts  can  visit  the  Old  Dominion  without 
leaving  his  principles  behind  him  when  he  crosses 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line?  Permit  me  to  say  to  you 
in  perfect  good  humor,  but  in  all  sincerity,  that  no 

20  political  creed  is  sound  which  cannot  be  proclaimed 
fearlessly  in  every  State  of  this  Union  where  the 
Federal  Constitution  is  the  supreme  law  of  the  land. 
Not  only  is  this  Republican  party  unable  to  pro- 
claim its  principles  alike  in  the  North  and  South, 

25  in  the  Free  States  and  in  the  Slave  States,  but  it 
cannot  even  proclaim  them  in  the  same  forms  and 
give  them  the  same  strength  and  meaning  in  all 
parts  of  the  same  State.  My  friend  Lincoln  finds 
it   extremely   difficult  to   manage   a   debate   in   the 

30  central  part  of  the  State,  where  there  is  a  mixture 
of  men  from  the  North  and  the  South.     In  the  ex- 


MR.    DOUGLAS'S   SPEECH  89 

treme  northern  part  of  Illinois  he  can  proclaim  as 
bold  and  radical  Abolitionism  as  ever  Giddings, 
Lovejoy,  or  Garrison  enunciated ;  but  when  he  gets 
down  a  little  further  south  he  claims  that  he  is  an  old 
line  Whig,  a  disciple  of  Henry  Clay,  and  declares  5 
that  he  still  adheres  to  the  old  line  Whig  creed,  and 
has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  Abolitionism,  or 
negro  equality,  or  negro  citizenship.  I  once  before 
hinted  this  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  a  public  speech,  and 
at  Charleston  he  defied  me  to  show  that  there  was  10 
any  difference  between  his  speeches  in  the  North 
and  in  the  South,  and  that  they  were  not  in  strict 
harmony.  I  will  now  call  your  attention  to  two  of 
them,  and  you  can  then  say  whether  you  would  be 
apt  to  believe  that  the  same  man  ever  uttered  both.  15 
In  a  speech  in  reply  to  me  at  Chicago  in  July  last, 
Mr.  Lincoln,  in  speaking  of  the  equality  of  the 
negro  with  the  white  man,  used  the  following  lan- 
guage: 

"I  should  like  to  know,  if,  taking  this  old  Declara-  02 
tion  of  Independence,  which  declares  that  all  men  are 
equal  upon  principle,  and  making  exceptions  to  it, 
where  will  it  stop?  If  one  man  says  it  does  not  mean 
a  negro,  why  may  not  another  man  say  it  does  not 
mean  another  man?  If  the  Declaration  is  not  the  25 
truth,  let  us  get  the  statute  book  in  which  we  find  it, 
and  tear  it  out.  Who  is  so  bold  as  to  do  it?  If  it  is 
not  true,  let  us  tear  it  out." 

You  find  that  Mr.  Lincoln  there  proposed  that  if 
the  doctrine  of  the   Declaration  of   Independence,   30 
declaring  all  men  to  be  bom  equal,  did  not  include 


90      FIFTH   JOINT  DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

the  negro  and  put  him  on  an  equaHty  with  the 
white  man,  that  we  should  take  the  statute  book  and 
tear  it  out.  He  there  took  the  ground  that  the 
negro  race  is  included  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
5  pendence  as  the  equal  of  the  white  race,  and  that 
there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  a  distinction  in  the 
races,  making  one  superior  and  the  other  inferior. 
I  read  now  from  the  same  speech: 

"My  friends  [he  says],  I  have  detained  you  about 
lo  as  long  as  I  desire  to  do,  and  I  have  only  to  say,  let  us 
discard  all  this  quibbling  about  this  man  and  the  other 
man,  this  race  and  that  race  and  the  other  race  being 
inferior,  and  therefore  they  must  be  placed  in  an 
inferior  position,  discarding  our  standard  that  we  have 
15  left  us.  Let  us  discard  all  these  things,  and  unite  as 
one  people  throughout  this  land,  until  we  shall  once 
more  stand  up  declaring  that  all  men  are  created 
equal." 

["  That's  right,"  etc.] 

^°  Yes,  I  have  no  doubt  that  you  think  it  is  right; 
but  the  Lincoln  men  down  in  Coles,  Tazewell,  and 
Sangamon  counties  do  not  think  it  is  right.  In  the 
conclusion  of  the  same  speech,  talking  to  the 
Chicago  Abolitionists,  he  said :   "  I  leave  you,  hop- 

25  ing  that  the  lamp  of  liberty  will  burn  in  your  bosoms 
until  there  shall  no  longer  be  a  doubt  that  all  men 
are  created  free  and  equal."  ["  Good,  good."] 
Well,  you  say  good  to  that,  and  you  are  going  to 
vote  for  Lincoln  because  he  holds  that  doctrine.     I 

30  will   not   blame   you   for   supporting   him   on   that 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  91 

jxroiind.  but  I  will  show  yon.  in  immediate  contrast 
with  that  doctrine,  what  Mr.  I.incoln  said  down  in 
Es^ypt  in  order  to  get  votes  in  that  locality,  where 
they  do  not  hold  to  such  a  doctrine.  In  a  joint  dis- 
cussion between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  myself,  at  Charles-  5 
ton,  I  think,  on  the  i8th  of  last  month,  Mr.  Lincoln, 
referring  to  this  subject,  used  the  following  lan- 
guage : 

"I  will  say  then  that  I  am  not,  nor  ever  have  been, 
in  favor  of  bringing  about  in  any  way  the  social  and   10 
political  equality  of  the  white  and  black  races;  that  I 
am    not,    nor    ever    have    been,    in    favor    of    making 
voters   of   the    free   negroes,   or   jurors,   or   qualifying 
them  to  hold  office,  or  having  them  to  marry  with  white 
people.     I  will  say,  in  addition,  that  there  is  a  physical    15 
difference  between  the  white  and  black  races  which,  I 
suppose,    will    forever    forbid    the    two    races    living 
together  upon  terms  of  social  and  political  equality;  and 
inasmuch  as  they   cannot  so   live,  that  while  they  do 
remain  together  there  must  be  the  position  of  superior   20 
and   inferior,   that   I   as   much   as   any   other   man   am 
in  favor  of  the  superior  position  being  assigned  to  the 
white  man." 

["Good  for  Lincoln."] 

Fellow-citizens,  here  you  find  men  hurrahing  for  25 
Lincoln,  and  saying  that  he  did  right,  when  in  one 
part  of  the  State  he  stood  up  for  negro  equality, 
and  in  another  part,  for  political  effect,  discarded 
the  doctrine,  and  declared  that  there  always  must 
])e  a  superior  and  inferior  race.  Abolitionists  up  30 
iNorth  are  expected  and  required  to  vote  for  Lincoln 


92      FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE  AT   GALESBURGH 

because  he  goes  for  the  equaHty  of  the  races,  hold- 
ing that  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence  the 
white  man  and  the  negro  were  created  equal,  and 
endowed  by  the  divine  law  with  that  equality,  and 
5  down  South  he  tells  the  old  Whigs,  the  Kentuckians, 
Virginians,  and  Tennesseeans,  that  there  is  a  phys- 
ical difference  in  the  races,  making  one  superior 
and  the  other  inferior,  and  that  he  is  in  favor  of 
maintaining  the  superiority  of  the  white  race  over 

lo  the  negro.  Now,  how  can  you  reconcile  those  two 
positions  of  Mr.  Lincoln?  He  is  to  be  voted  for  in 
the  South  as  a  pro-slavery  man,  and  he  is  to  be 
voted  for  in  the  North  as  an  Abolitionist.  Up  here 
he  thinks  it  is  all  nonsense  to  talk  about  a  difference 

15  between  the  races,  and  says  that  we  must  "  discard 
all  quibbling  about  this  race  and  that  race  and  the 
other  race  being  inferior,  and  therefore  they  must 
be  placed  in  an  inferior  position."  Down  South  he 
makes  this  "  quibble  "  about  this  race  and  that  race 

20  and  the  other  race  being  inferior  as  the  creed  of  his 
party,  and  declares  that  the  negro  can  never  be 
elevated  to  the  position  of  the  white  man.  You  find 
that  his  political  meetings  are  called  by  different 
names  in  different  counties  in  the  State.  Here  they 

25  are  called  Republican  meetings  ;  but  in  old  Tazewell, 
where  Lincoln  made  a  speech  last  Tuesday,  he  did 
not  address  a  Republican  meeting,  but  "  a  grand 
rally  of  the  Lincoln  men."  There  are  very  few  Re- 
publicans there,  because  Tazewell  County  is  filled 

30  with  old  Virginians  and  Kentuckians,  all  of  whom 
are  Whigs  or  Democrats;  and  if  Mr.  Lincoln  had 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  03 

called  an  Abolition  or  Republican  meeting  there, 
he  would  not  get  many  votes.  Go  down  into  Egypt, 
and  you  find  that  he  and  his  party  arc  operating 
under  an  alias  there,  which  his  friend  Trumbull 
has  given  them,  in  order  that  they  may  cheat  the  5 
peoj^le.  When  I  was  down  in  jMonroe  County  a 
few  weeks  ago,  addressing  the  people,  I  saw  hand- 
bills posted  announcing  that  Mr.  Trumbull  was 
going  to  speak  in  behalf  of  Lincoln ;  and  what  do 
you  think  the  name  of  his  party  was  there?  Why,  lo 
the  "Free  Democracy."  Mr.  Trumbull  and  Mr. 
Jehu  Baker  were  announced  to  address  the  Free 
Democracy  of  Monroe  County,  and  the  bill  was 
signed,  "  Many  Free  Democrats."  The  reason  that 
Lincoln  and  his  party  adopted  the  name  of  "  Free  15 
Democracy "  down  there  was  becaus'^  Monroe 
County  has  always  been  an  old-fashioned  Demo- 
cratic county,  and  hence  it  was  necessary  to  make 
the  people  believe  that  they  were  Democrats,  sym- 
pathized with  them,  and  were  fighting  for  Lincoln  20 
as  Democrats.  Come  up  to  Springfield,  where  Lin- 
coln now  lives,  and  always  has  lived,  and  you  find 
that  the  Convention  of  his  party  which  assembled 
to  nominate  candidates  for  Legislature,  who  are 
expected  to  vote  for  him  if  elected,  dare  not  adopt  25 
the  name  of  Republican,  but  assembled  under  the 
title  of  "  all  opposed  to  the  Democracy."  Thus  you 
find  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  creed  cannot  travel  through 
even  one-half  of  the  counties  of  this  State,  but  that  it 
changes  its  hues  and  becomes  lighter  and  lighter  as  30 
it  travels  from  the  extreme  north,  until  it  is  nearly 


94     FIFTH  JOIXT  DEBATE  AT   GALESBURGH 

white  when  it  reaches  the  extreme  south  end  of  the 
State. 

I  ask  you,  my  friends,  why  cannot  RepubHcans 
avow  their  principles  ahke  everywhere?  I  would 
5  despise  myself  if  I  thought  that  I  w^as  procuring 
your  votes  by  concealing  my  opinions,  and  by  avow- 
ing one  set  of  principles  in  one  part  of  the  State, 
and  a  different  set  in  another  part.  If  I  do  not 
truly   and  honorably   represent   your   feelings   and 

lo  principles,  then  I  ought  not  to  be  your  Senatt)r ;  and 
I  will  never  conceal  my  opinions,  or  modify  or 
change  them  a  hair's  breadth,  in  order  to  get  votes. 
I  tell  you  that  this  Chicago  doctrine  of  Lincoln's — 
declaring  that  the  negro  and  the  white  man  are 

15  made  equal  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and 
by  Divine  Providence — is  a  monstrous  heresy. 
The  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
never  dreamed  of  the  negro  when  they  were  writ- 
ing that  document.     They  referred  to  white  men, 

20  to  men  of  European  birth,  and  European  descent, 
when  they  declared  the  equality  of  all  men.  I  see 
a  gentleman  there  in  the  crowd  shaking  his  head. 
Let  me  remind  him  that  when  Thomas  Jefferson 
wrote  that  document,  he  was  the  owner,  and  so  con- 

25  tinned  until  his  death,  of  a  large  number  of  slaves. 
Did  he  intend  to  say  in  that  Declaration  that  his 
negro  slaves,  which  he  held  and  treated  as  property, 
were  created  his  equals  by  divine  law,  and  that  he 
was  violating  the  law  of  God  every  day  of  his  life 

30  by  holding  them  as  slaves?  It  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  when  that  Declaration   was  put  forth. 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  95 

all  of  the  thirteen  Colonies  were  slaveholding 
Colonies,  and  every  man  who  signed  that  in- 
strument represented  a  slaveholding  constituency. 
Recollect,  also,  that  no  one  of  them  emancipated  his 
slaves,  much  less  put  them  on  an  equality  with  5 
himself,  after  he  signed  the  Declaration.  On  the 
contrary,  they  all  continued  to  hold  their  negroes 
as  slaves  during  the  Revolutionary  War.  Now,  do 
you  believe — are  you  willing  to  have  it  said — that 
every  man  who  signed  the  Declaration  of  Inde-  10 
pendence  declared  the  negro  his  equal,  and  then  w'as 
hypocrite  enough  to  continue  to  hold  him  as  a  slave, 
in  violation  of  what  he  believed  to  be  the  divine 
law?  And  yet  when  you  say  that  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  includes  the  negro,  you  charge  the  15 
signers  of  it  with  hypocrisy. 

I  say  to  you,   frankly,  that  in  my  opinion  this 
government  was  made  by  our  fathers  on  the  white 
basis.     It  was  made  by  wdiite  men  for  the  benefit 
of  white  men  and  their  posterity  forever,  and  was  20 
intended   to  be  administered  by   white  men   in   all 
time  to  come.    But  while  I  hold  that  under  our  Con- 
stitution  and   political   system   the   negro   is  not  a 
citizen,  cannot  be  a  citizen,  and  ought  not  to  be  a 
citizen,  it  does  not   follow  by  any  means  that  he   25 
should  be  a  slave.     On  the  contrary,  it  does  follow 
that  the  negro,  as  an  inferior  race,  ought  to  possess 
every  right,  every  privilege,  every  immunity,  which 
he  can  safely  exercise,  consistent  with  the  safety  of 
the  society  in  which  he  lives.     Humanity  requires,   30 
and  Christianity  commands,  that  you  shall  extend 


96     FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE  AT   GALESBURGH 

to  every  inferior  being,  and  every  dependent  being, 
all  the  privileges,  immunities,  and  advantages  which 
can  be  granted  to  them,  consistent  with  the  safety 
of  society.  If  you  ask  me  the  nature  and  extent 
5  of  these  privileges,  I  answer  that  that  is  a  question 
which  the  people  of  each  State  must  decide  for 
themselves.  Illinois  has  decided  that  question  for 
herself.  We  have  said  that  in  this  State  the  negro 
shall  not  be  a  slave,  nor  shall  he  be  a  citizen.    Ken- 

lo  tucky  holds  a  different  doctrine.  New  York  holds 
one  different  from  either,  and  Maine  one  different 
from  all.  Virginia,  in  her  policy  on  this  question, 
differs  in  many  respects  from  the  others,  and  so  on, 
until  there  are  hardly  two  States  whose  policy  is 

15  exactly  alike  in  regard  to  the  relation  of  the  white 
man  and  the  negro.  Nor  can  you  reconcile  them 
and  make  them  alike.  Each  State  must  do  as  it 
pleases.  Illinois  had  as  much  right  to  adopt  the 
policy  which  we  have  on  that  subject  as  Kentucky 

20  had  to  adopt  a  different  policy.  The  great  principle 
of  this  government  is,  that  each  State  has  the  right 
to  do  as  it  pleases  on  all  these  questions,  and  no 
other  State  or  power  on  earth  has  the  right  to  in- 
terfere with  us,  or  complain  of  us  merely  because 

25  our  system  differs  from  theirs.  In  the  Compromise 
Measures  of  1850,  Mr.  Clay  declared  that  this  great 
principle  ought  to  exist  in  the  Territories  as  well 
as  in  the  States,  and  I  reasserted  his  doctrine  in  the 
Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  of  1854. 

30  But  Mr.  Lincoln  cannot  be  made  to  understand, 
and  those  who  are  determined  to  vote  for  him,  no 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  97 

matter  whether  he  is  a  pro-slavery  man  in  the  South 
and  a  ne[:^ro  equahty  advocate  in  the  North,  cannot 
be  made  to  understand  how  it  is  that  in  a  Territory 
the  people  can  do  as  they  please  on  the  slavery  ques- 
tion under  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Let  us  see  ^ 
whether  I  cannot  explain  it  to  the  satisfaction  ot 
all  impartial  men.  Chief  Justice  Taney  has  said, 
ill  his  ()i)inion  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  that  a  ncp^ro 
slave,  beinf^  property,  stands  on  an  equal  footing 
with  other  property,  and  that  the  owner  may  carry  jo 
them  into  the  United  States  territory  the  same  as  he 
does  other  property.  Suppose  any  two  of  you, 
neiij^-hbors,  should  conclude  to  go  to  Kansas,  one 
carrying  $100,000  worth  of  negro  slaves,  and  the 
other  $100,000  worth  of  mixed  merchandise,  includ-  15 
ing  quantities  of  liquors.  You  both  agree  that  under 
that  decision  you  may  carry  your  property  to  Kan- 
sas ;  but  when  you  get  it  there,  the  merchant  who  is 
possessed  of  the  liquors  is  met  by  the  Maine  liquor 
law,  which  prohibits  the  sale  or  use  of  his  property,  20 
and  the  owner  of  the  slaves  is  met  by  equally  un- 
friendly legislation,  which  makes  his  projx^rty 
worthless  after  he  gets  it  there.  What  is  the  right 
to  carry  your  property  into  the  Territory  worth  to 
either,  when  unfriendly  legislation  in  the  Territory  25 
renders  it  worthless  after  you  get  it  there?  The 
slaveholder  when  he  gets  his  slaves  there  finds  that 
there  is  no  local  taw  to  protect  him  in  holding  them, 
no  slave  code,  no  police  regulation  maintaining  and 
supporting  him  in  his  right,  and  he  discovers  at  2>o 
once  that  the  absence  of  such  friendly  legislation 


98     FIFTH   JOINT  DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

excludes  his  property  from  the  Territory  just  as 
irresistibly  as  if  there  was  a  positive  Constitutional 
prohibition  excluding  it.  Thus  you  find  it  is  with 
any  kind  of  property  in  a  Territory:  it  depends  for 

5  its  protection  on  the  local  and  municipal  law.  If  the 
people  of  a  Territory  want  slavery,  they  make 
friendly  legislation  to  introduce  it;  but  if  they  do 
not  want  it,  they  withhold  all  protection  from  it, 
and  then  it  cannot  exist  there.     Such  was  the  view 

lo  taken  on  the  subject  by  different  Southern  men 
when  the  Nebraska  bill  passed.  See  the  speech  of 
Mr.  Orr,  of  South  Carolina,  the  present  Speaker  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  of  Congress,  made  at 
that  time;  and  there  you  will  find  this  whole  doc- 

15  trine  argued  out  at  full  length.  Read  the  speeches 
of  other  Southern  Congressmen,  Senators  and  Rep- 
resentatives, made  in  1854,  and  you  will  find  that 
they  took  the  same  view  of  the  subject  as  Mr.  Orr, 
that  slavery  could  never  be  forced  on  a  people  who 

20  did  not  want  it.  I  hold  that  in  this  country  there 
is  no  power  on  the  face  of  the  globe  that  can  force 
any  institution  on  an  unwilling  people.  The  great 
fundamental  principle  of  our  government  is  that 
the  people  of  each  State  and  each  Territory  shall 

25  be  left  perfectly  free  to  decide  for  themselves  what 
shall  be  the  nature  and  character  of  their  institu- 
tions. When  this  government  was  made,  it  was 
based  on  that  principle.  At  the  time  of  its  formation 
there  were  twelve  slaveholding  States  and  one  free 

30  State  in  this  Union.  Suppose  this  doctrine  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  the  Republicans,  of  uniformity  of  laws 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   SPEECH  99 

of  all  the  States  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  had  pre- 
vailed; suppose  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  had  been  a 
member  of  the  Convention  which  framed  the  Con- 
stitution, and  that  he  had  risen  in  that  august  body, 
and,  addressing  the  father  of  his  country,  had  said  5 
as  he  did  at  Springfield :  "  A  house  divided  against 
itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe  this  government  can- 
not endure  permanently,  half  slave  and  half  free. 
I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved,  I  do  not 
expect  the  house  to  fall,  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  10 
to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all 
the  other."  What  do  you  think  would  have  been 
the  result?  Suppose  he  had  made  that  Convention 
believe  that  doctrine,  and  they  had  acted  upon 
it,  what  do  you  think  would  have  been  the  result?  15 
Do  you  believe  that  the  one  Free  State  would  have 
outvoted  the  twelve  slaveholding  States,  and  thus 
abolish  slavery?  On  the  contrary,  would  not  the 
twelve  slaveholding  States  have  outvoted  the  one 
Free  State,  and  under  his  doctrine  have  fastened  20 
slavery  by  an  irrevocable  constitutional  provision 
upon  every  inch  of  the  American  Republic?  Thus 
you  see  that  the  doctrine  he  now  advocates,  if  pro- 
claimed at  the  beginning  of  the  government,  would 
have  established  slavery  everywhere  throughout  the  25 
American  continent ;  and  are  you  willing,  now  that 
we  have  the  majority  section,  to  exercise  a  power 
which  we  never  would  have  submitted  to  when  we 
were  in  the  minority?  If  the  Southern  States  had 
attempted  to  control  our  institutions,  and  make  the  30 
States  all  slave,  when  they  had  had  the  power,  I  ask 


100    FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE  AT   GALES  BURGH 

would  you  have  submitted  to  it?  If  you  would  not, 
are  you  willing,  now  that  we  have  become  the 
strongest  under  that  great  principle  of  self-govern- 
ment that  allows  each  State  to  do  as  it  pleases, 

5  to  attempt  to  control  the  Southern  institutions? 
Then,  my  friends,  I  say  to  you  that  there  is  but  one 
path  of  peace  in  this  Republic,  and  that  is  to  ad- 
minister this  government  as  our  fathers  made  it, 
divided  into  Free  and  Slave  States,  allowing  each 

lo  State  to  decide  for  itself  whether  it  wants  slavery 
or  not.  If  Illinois  will  settle  the  slavery  question 
for  herself,  and  mind  her  own  business  and  let  her 
neighbors  alone,  we  will  be  at  peace  with  Kentucky 
and  every  other  Southern   State.     If  every  other 

^5  State  in  the  Union  will  do  the  same,  there  will  be 
peace  between  the  North  and  the  South,  and  in  the 
whole  Union. 


MR.  LINCOLN'S   REPLY 

My  Fellow-Citizens:  A  very  large  portion  of 
2o  the  speech  which  Judge  Douglas  has  addressed  to 
you  has  previously  been  delivered  and  put  in  print. 
I  do  not  mean  that  for  a  hit  upon  the  Judge  at  all. 
If  I  had  not  been  interrupted,  I  was  going  to  say 
that  such  an  answer  as  I  was  able  to  make  to  a  very 
25  large  portion  of  it,  had  already  been  more  than  once 
made  and  published.  There  has  been  an  oppor- 
tunity offered  to  the  public  to  see  our  respective 
views  upon  the  topics  discussed  in  a  large  portion 


MR.  LINCOLN'S   REPLY  loi 

of  the  speech  which  he  has  just  dcHvered.  I  make 
these  remarks  for  the  purpose  of  excusinp^  myself 
for  not  passing  over  the  entire  ground  that  the 
Judge  has  just  traversed.  I  however  desire  to  take 
up  some  of  the  points  that  he  has  attended  to,  and  5 
ask  your  attention  to  them,  and  I  shall  follow  him 
backwards  upon  some  notes  which  I  have  taken, 
reversing  the  order,  by  beginning  where  he 
concluded. 

The   Judge   has   alluded   to   the   Declaration   of  lo 
Independence,   and   insisted   that   negroes   are   not 
included  in  that  Declaration ;  and  that  it  is  a  slander 
upon  the  framers  of  that  instrument  to  suppose  that 
negroes  were  meant  therein ;  and  he  asks  you :  Is  it 
possible  to  believe  that  Mr.  Jefiferson,  who  penned   15 
the  immortal  paper,  could  have   supposed  himself 
applying   the   language   of  that   instrument  to   the 
negro  race,  and  yet  hold  a  portion  of  that  race  in 
slavery?     Would  he  not  at  once  have  freed  them? 
I  only  have  to  remark  upon  this  part  of  the  Judge's   20 
speech   (and  that,  too,  very  briefly,  for  I  shall  not 
detain  myself,  or  you,  upon  that  point  for  any  great 
length  of  time),  that  I  believe  the  entire  records  of 
the  world,  from  the  date  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence  up   to   within   three   years   ago,   may   be  25 
searched  in  vain  for  one  single  affinnation,  from  one 
single  man,  that  the  negro  was  not  included  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence ;  I  think  I  may  defy 
Judge  Douglas  to  show  that  he  ever  said  so,  that 
Washington  ever  said  so,  that  any  President  ever   30 
said  so,  that  any  member  of  Congress  ever  said  so, 


102    FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE   AT   GALES  BURGH 

or  that  any  living  man  upon  the  whole  earth  ever  said 
so,  until  the  necessities  of  the  present  policy  of  the 
Democratic  party,  in  regard  to  slavery,  had  to  invent 
that  affirmation.  And  I  will  remind  Judge  Douglas 
5  and  his  audience  that  while  Mr.  Jefferson  was  the 
owner  of  slaves,  as  undoubtedly  he  was,  in  speaking 
upon  this  very  subject  he  used  the  strong  language 
that  "  he  trembled  for  his  country  when  he  remem- 
bered that   God  was   just";  and   I   will  offer  the 

lo  highest  premium  in  my  power  to  Judge  Douglas  if 
he  will  show  me  that  he  in  all  his  life,  ever  uttered  a 
sentiment  at  all  akin  to  that  of  Jefferson. 

The  next  thing  to  which  I  will  ask  your  attention 
is    the    Judge's    comments    upon    the    fact,    as    he 

15  assumes  it  to  be,  that  we  cannot  call  our  public 
meetings  as  Republican  meetings ;  and  he  instances 
Tazewell  County  as  one  of  the  places  where  the 
friends  of  Lincoln  have  called  a  public  meeting  and 
have  not  dared  to  name  it  a  Republican  meeting. 

20  He  instances  Monroe  County  as  another,  where 
Judge  Trumbull  and  Jehu  Baker  addressed  the  per- 
sons whom  the  Judge  assumes  to  be  the  friends  of 
Lincoln,  calling  them  the  "  Free  Democracy."  I 
have  the  honor  to  inform  Judge  Douglas  that  he 

25  spoke  in  that  very  county  of  Tazewell  last  Saturday, 
and  I  was  there  on  Tuesday  last ;  and  when  he  spoke 
there,  he  spoke  under  a  call  not  venturing  to  use 
the  word  "  Democrat."  [Turning  to  Judge  Doug- 
las.]   What  think  you  of  this? 

30  So,  again,  there  is  another  thing  to  which  I  would 
ask  the  Judge's  attention  upon  this  subject.    In  the 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REPLY  103 

contest  of  1856  his  party  deli^q-htcd  to  call  themselves 
together  as  the  "  National  Democracy  ";  but  now,  if 
there  should  be  a  notice  put  up  anywhere  for  a 
meeting  of  the  "  National  Democracy,"  Judge 
Douglas  and  his  friends  would  not  come.  They  5 
would  not  suppose  themselves  invited.  They  would 
understand  that  it  w^as  a  call  for  those  hateful  post- 
masters whom  he  talks  about. 

Now   a   few   words   in   regard  to  these  extracts 
from  speeches  of  mine  which  Judge  Douglas  has    10 
read  to  you,  and  which  he  supposes  are  in  very 
great  contrast  to  each  other.     Those  speeches  have 
been  before  the  public  for  a  considerable  time,  and 
if  they  have  any  inconsistency  in  them,  if  there  is 
any  conflict  in  them,  the  public  have  been  able  to    15 
detect  it.     When  the  Judge  says,  in  speaking  on  this 
subject,  that  I  make  speeches  of  one  sort  for  the 
people  of  the  northern  end  of  the  State,  and  of  a 
different  sort  for  the  southern  people,  he  assumes 
that  I  do  not  understand  that  my  speeches  will  be   20 
put  in  print  and  read  north  and  south.     I  knew  all 
the  while  that  the  speech  that  I  made  at  Chicago 
and  the  one  I  made  at  Jonesboro  and  the  one  at 
Charleston,  would  all  be  put  in  print,  and  all  the 
reading  and  intelligent  men  in  the  community  would   25 
see  them  and  know  all  about  my  opinions.     And  I 
have  not  supposed,  and  do  not  now  suppose,  that 
there  is  any  conflict  whatever  between  them.     But 
the  Judge  will  have  it  that  if  we  do  not  confess  that 
there  is  a  sort  of  inequality  between  the  white  and   30 
black  races  which  justifies  us  in  making  them  slaves, 


104    FIFTH   JOINT  DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

we  must  then  insist  that  there  is  a  degree  of  equaHty 
that  Requires  us  to  make  them  our  wives.  Now,  I 
have  all  the  while  taken  a  broad  distinction  in  regard 
to  that  matter;  and  that  is  all  there  is  in  these  dif- 
5  ferent  speeches  which  he  arrays  here ;  and  the  entire 
reading  of  either  of  the  speeches  will  show  that  that 
distinction  was  made.  Perhaps  by  taking  two  parts 
of  the  same  speech  he  could  have  got  up  as  much  of 
a  conflict  as  the  one  he  has  found.     I  have  all  the 

lo  while  maintained  that  in  so  far  as  it  should  be 
insisted  that  there  w^as  an  equality  between  the  white 
and  black  races  that  should  produce  a  perfect  social 
and  political  equality,  it  was  an  impossibility.  This 
you  have  seen  in  my  printed  speeches,  and  with  it 

15  I  have  said  that  in  their  right  to  "  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness,"  as  proclaimed  in  that  old 
Declaration,  the  inferior  races  are  our  equals.  And 
these  declarations  I  have  constantly  made  in  refer- 
ence to  the  abstract  moral  question,  to  contemplate 

20  and  consider  when  we  are  legislating  about  any 
new  country  which  is  not  already  cursed  with  the 
actual  presence  of  the  evil, — slavery.  I  have  never 
manifested  any  impatience  with  the  necessities  that 
spring   from   the   actual   presence   of   black   people 

25  amongst  us,  and  the  actual  existence  of  slavery 
amongst  us  where  it  does  already  exist ;  but  I  have 
insisted  that,  in  legislating  for  new  countries  where 
it  does  not  exist,  there  is  no  just  rule  other  than  that 
of  moral  and  abstract  right !     With   reference  to 

30  those  new  countries,  those  maxims  as  to  the  right 
of  a  people  to  "  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap- 


MR.    LINCOLN'S   REPLY  105 

pincss  "  were  the  just  rules  to  be  constantly  referred 
to.  There  is  no  misunderstanding-  this,  except  by 
men  interested  to  misunderstand  it.  I  take  it  that 
I  have  to  address  an  intelligent  and  reading  com- 
munity, who  will  peruse  what  I  say,  weigh  it,  and  5 
then  judge  whether  I  advance  improper  or  unsound 
views,  or  whether  I  advance  hypocritical,  and  decep- 
tive, and  contrary  views  in  different  portions  of  the 
country.  I  believe  myself  to  be  guilty  of  no  such 
thing  as  the  latter,  though,  of  course,  I  cannot  claim  10 
that  I  am  entirely  free  from  all  error  in  the 
opinions  I  advance. 

The  Judge  has  also  detained  us  awhile  in  regard 
to  the  distinction  between  his  party  and  our  party. 
His  he  assumes  to  be  a  national  party, — ours  a  sec-   15 
tional  one.     He   does  this   in   asking  the   question 
whether  this  country  has  any  interest  in  the  main- 
tenance of  the  Republican  party  ?     He  assumes  that 
our  party  is  altogether  sectional,  that  the  party  to 
which  he  adheres  is  national ;  and  the  argument  is,   20 
that  no  party  can  be  a  rightful  party — can  be  based 
upon    rightful    princii:)les — unless   it    can    announce 
its  principles  everywhere.     I   presume   that  Judge 
Douglas   could  not  go  into   Russia  and  announce 
the  doctrine  of  our  national  Democracy ;  he  could   25 
not  denounce  the  doctrine  of  kings  and  emperors 
and  monarchies  in  Russia;  and.it  may  be  true  of 
this  country  that  in  some  places  w-e  may  not  be  able 
to  proclaim  a  doctrine  as  clearly  true  as  the  truth 
of  Democracy,  because  there  is  a  section  so  directly   30 
opposed  to  it  that  they  will  not  tolerate  us  in  doing 


io6    FIFTH   JOINT   DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

so.  Is  it  the  true  test  of  the  soundness  of  a  doc- 
rine  that  in  some  places  people  won't  let  you  pro- 
claim it?  Is  that  the  way  to  test  the  truth  of  any 
doctrine?    Why,  I  understood  that  at  one  time  the 

5  people  of  Chicago  would  not  let  Judge  Douglas 
preach  a  certain  favorite  doctrine  of  his.  I  com- 
mend to  his  consideration  the  question,  whether  he 
takes  that  as  a  test  of  the  unsoundness  of  what  he 
wanted  to  preach. 

lo  There  is  another  thing  to  which  I  wish  to  ask 
attention  for  a  Httle  while  on  this  occasion.  What 
has  always  been  the  evidence  brought  forward  to 
prove  that  the  Republican  party  is  a  sectional  party  ? 
The  main  one  was  that  in  the  Southern  portion  of 

15  the  Union  the  people  did  not  let  the  Republicans 
proclaim  their  doctrines  amongst  them.  That  has 
been  the  main  evidence  brought  forward, — that  they 
had  no  supporters,  or  substantially  none,  in  the 
Slave  States.     The  South  have  not  taken  hold  of 

20  our  principles  as  we  announce  them  ;  nor  does  Judge 
Douglas  now  grapple  with  those  principles.  We 
have  a  Republican  State  Platform,  laid  down  in 
Springfield  in  June  last,  stating  our  position  all  the 
way  through  the  questions  before  the  country.     We 

25  are  now  far  advanced  in  this  canvass.  Judge  Doug- 
las and  I  have  made  perhaps  forty  speeches  apiece, 
and  we  have  now  for  the  fifth  time  met  face  to  face 
in  debate,  and  up  to  this  day  I  have  not  found  either 
Judge  Douglas  or  any  friend  of  his  taking  hold  of 

30  the  Republican  platform,  or  laying  his  finger  upon 
anything   in   it  that   is  wrong.     I   ask  you   all   to 


MR.   LIKCOLN'S  REPLY  107 

recollect  that.  Jiid^c^c  Donc^las  turns  away  from  the 
platform  of  principles  to  the  fact  that  he  can  find 
people  somewhere  who  will  not  allow  us  to  announce 
those  principles.  If  he  had  great  confidence  that 
our  principles  were  wrong,  he  would  take  hold  of  5 
them  and  demonstrate  them  to  be  wrong.  P)Ut  he 
does  not  do  so.  The  only  evidence  he  has  of  their 
being  wrong  is  in  the  fact  that  there  are  people  who 
won't  allow  us  to  preach  them.  1  ask  again,  is  that 
the  way  to  test  the  soundness  of  a  doctrine  ?  10 

I  ask  his  attention  also  to  the  fact  that  by  the  rule 
of  nationality  he  is  himself  fast  becoming  sectional. 
I  ask  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  his  speeches  would 
not  go  as  current  now  south  of  the  Ohio  River  as 
they  have  formerly  gone  there.  I  ask  his  attention  15 
to  the  fact  that  he  felicitates  himself  to-day  that  all 
the  Democrats  of  the  Free  States  are  agreeing 
with  him,  while  he  omits  to  tell  us  that  the  Demo- 
crats of  any  Slave  State  agree  with  him.  If  he  has 
not  thought  of  this,  I  commend  to  his  consideration  20 
the  evidence  in  his  own  declaration,  on  this  day, 
of  his  becoming  sectional  too.  I  see  it  rapidly 
approaching.  Whatever  may  be  the  result  of  this 
ephemeral  contest  between  Judge  Douglas  anil 
myself,  I  see  the  day  rapidly  approaching  when  this  25 
pill  of  sectionalism,  which  he  has  been  thrusting 
down  the  throats  of  Republicans  for  years  past, 
will  be  crowded  down  his  own  throat. 

Now,  in  regard  to  what  Judge  Douglas  said  (in 
the  beginning  of  his  speech)  about  the  Compromise  30 
of  1850  containing  the  principle  of  the  Nebraska  bill, 


io8    FIFTH  JOINT   DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

although  I  have  often  presented  my  views  upon  that 
subject,  yet  as  I  have  not  done  so  in  this  canvass,  I 
will,  if  you  please,  detain  you  a  little  with  them.  I 
have  always  maintained,  so  far  as  I  w^as  able,  that 
5  there  was  nothing  of  the  principle  of  the  Nebraska 
bill  in  the  Compromise  of  1850  at  all, — nothing 
whatever.  Where  can  you  find  the  principle  of  the 
Nebraska  bill  in  that  Compromise?  If  anywhere, 
in  the  two  pieces  of  the  Compromise  organizing  the 

10  Territories  of  New  Mexico  and  Utah.  It  was 
expressly  provided  in  these  two  Acts  that  when 
they  came  to  be  admitted  into  the  Union,  they 
should  be  admitted  with  or  without  slavery,  as  they 
should  choose,  by  their  own  constitutions.     Nothing 

15  was  said  in  either  of  those  Acts  as  to  what  was  to 
be  done  in  relation  to  slavery  during  the  Territorial 
existence  of  those  Territories,  while  Henry  Clay 
constantly  made  the  declaration  (Judge  Douglas 
recognizing  him  as  a  leader)   that,  in  his  opinion, 

20  the  old  Mexican  laws  would  control  that  question 
during  the  Territorial  existence,  and  that  these  old 
Mexican  laws  excluded  slavery.  How  can  that  be 
used  as  a  principle  for  declaration  that  during  the 
Territorial  existence  as  well  as  at  the  time  of  fram- 

25  ing  the  constitution,  the  people,  if  you  please,  might 
have  slaves  if  they  wanted  them?  I  am  not  dis- 
cussing the  question  whether  it  is  right  or  wTong; 
but  how  are  the  New  Mexican  and  Utah  laws  pat- 
terns for  the  Nebraska  bill?     I  maintain  that  the 

30  organization  of  Utah  and  New  Mexico  did  not 
establish   a   general   principle    at   all.      It   had   no 


MR.   LIXCOLX'S   REPLY  log 

feature  of  establishing^  a  j::^eneral  principle.  The 
Acts  to  which  I  have  referred  were  a  part  of  a  gen- 
eral system  of  Compromises.  They  did  not  lay 
down  what  was  proposed  as  a  regular  policy  for  the 
Territories,  only  an  agreement  in  this  particular  case  5 
to  do  in  that  way,  because  other  things  were  done 
that  were  to  be  a  compensation  for  it.  They  were 
allowed  to  come  in  in  that  shape,  because  in  another 
way  it  was  paid  for, — considering  that  as  a  part 
of  that  system  of  measures  called  the  Compromise  10 
of  1850,  which  finally  included  half-a-dozen  Acts. 
It  included  the  admission  of  California  as  a  free 
State,  which  was  kept  out  of  the  Union  for  half  a 
year  because  it  had  formed  a  free  constitution.  It 
included  the  settlement  of  the  boundary  of  Texas,  15 
which  had  been  undefined  before,  which  was  in  itself 
a  slavery  question ;  for  if  you  pushed  the  line  farther 
west,  you  made  Texas  larger,  and  made  more  slave 
territory ;  while,  if  you  drew  the  line  toward  the 
east,  you  narrowed  the  boundary  and  diminished  20 
the  domain  of  slavery,  and  by  so  nuich  increased 
free  territory.  It  included  the  abolition  of  the  slave 
trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  It  included  the 
passage  of  a  new  Fugitive  Slave  law.  All  these 
things  were  put  together,  and  though  passed  in  sep-  25 
arate  Acts,  were  nevertheless  in  legislation  (as  the 
speeclies  at  the  time  will  show)  made  to  depend 
upon  each  other.  Each  got  votes,  with  the  under- 
standing that  the  other  measures  were  to  ])ass,  and 
by  this  system  of  Compromise,  in  that  series  of  io 
measures,   those   two   bills — the   New    Mexico   and 


no    FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

Utah  bills — were  passed :  and  I  say  for  that  reason 
they  could  not  be  taken  as  models,  framed  upon 
their  own  intrinsic  principle,  for  all  future  Terri- 
tories. And  I  have  the  evidence  of  this  in  the  fact 
5  that  Judge  Douglas,  a  year  afterward,  or  more  than 
a  year  afterward,  perhaps,  when  he  first  introduced 
bills  for  the  purpose  of  framing  new  Territories, 
did  not  attempt  to  follow  these  bills  of  New  Mexico 
and    Utah;    and    even    when    he    introduced    this 

lo  Nebraska  bill,  I  think  you  will  discover  that  he  did 
not  exactly  follow  them.  But  I  do  not  wish  to 
dw^ell  at  great  length  upon  this  branch  of  the  dis- 
cussion. My  own  opinion  is,  that  a  thorough  inves- 
tigation will  show  most  plainly  that  the  New  Mexico 

15  and  Utah  bills  were  part  of  a  system  of  compromise, 
and  not  designed  as  patterns  for  future  Territorial 
legislation ;  and  that  this  Nebraska  bill  did  not  fol- 
low them  as  a  pattern  at  all. 

The  Judge  tells,  in  proceeding,  that  he  is  opposed 

20  to  making  any  odious  distinctions  between  Free  and 
Slave  States.  I  am  altogether  unaware  that  the 
Republicans  are  in  favor  of  making  any  odious  dis- 
tinctions between  the  Free  and  Slave  States.  But 
there  is  still  a  difference,  I  think,  between  Judge 

25  Douglas  and  the  Republicans  in  this.  I  suppose 
that  the  real  difference  between  Judge  Douglas  and 
his  friends,  and  the  Republicans,  on  the  contrary,  is, 
that  the  Judge  is  not  in  favor  of  making  any  diff"er- 
ence  between  slavery  and  liberty ;  that  he  is  in  favor 

3o  of  eradicating,  or  pressing  out  of  view,  the  ques- 
tions of  preference  in  this  country  for  free  or  slave 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REPLY  in 

institutions ;  and  consequently  every  sentiment  he 
utters  discards  the  idea  that  there  is  any  wrong  in 
slavery.  Ever\'thing  that  emanates  from  him  or  his 
coadjutors  in  their  course  of  policy  carefully  ex- 
cludes the  thought  that  there  is  anything  wrong  in  5 
slavery.  All  their  arguments,  if  you  will  consider 
them,  will  be  seen  to  exclude  the  thought  that  there 
is  anything  whatever  wrong  in  slavery.  If  you  will 
take  the  Judge's  speeches,  and  select  the  short  and 
pointed  sentences  expressed  by  him, — as  his  decla-  lo 
ration  that  he  "  don't  care  whether  slavery  is  voted 
up  or  down,"  you  will  see  at  once  that  this  is  per- 
fectly logical,  if  you  do  not  admit  that  slavery  is 
wrong.  If  you  do  admit  that  it  is  wrong,  Judge 
Douglas  cannot  logically  say  he  don't  care  whether  15 
a  wrong  is  voted  up  or  voted  down.  Judge  Doug- 
las declares  that  if  any  community  wants  slavery 
they  have  a  right  to  have  it.  He  can  say  that  log- 
ically, if  he  says  that  there  is  no  wrong  in  slavery; 
but  if  you  admit  that  there  is  a  wrong  in  it,  he  can-  20 
not  logically  say  that  anybody  has  a  right  to  do 
wrong.  He  insists  that,  upon  the  score  of  equality, 
the  owners  of  slaves  and  owners  of  property — of 
horses  and  every  other  sort  of  property — should  be 
alike,  and  hold  them  alike  in  a  new  Territory.  25 
That  is  perfectly  logical  if  the  two  species  of  prop- 
erty are  alike  and  are  equally  founded  in  right.  But 
if  you  admit  that  one  of  them  is  wrong,  you  cannot 
institute  any  ecpiality  between  right  and  wrong. 
And  from  this  difference  of  sentiment, — the  belief  30 
on  the  part  of  one  that  the  institution  is  wrong,  and 


112    FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE   AT   G  ALES  BURGH ' 

a  policy  springing  from  that  belief  which  looks 
to  the  arrest  of  the  enlargement  of  that  wrong ;  and 
this  other  sentiment,  that  it  is  no  wrong,  and  a 
policy  sprung  from  that  sentiment,  which  will  tol- 

5  erate  no  idea  of  preventing  the  wrong  from  growing 
larger,  and  looks  to  there  never  being  an  end  to  it 
through  all  the  existence  of  things, — arises  the  real 
difference  between  Judge  Douglas  and  his  friends 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Republicans  on  the  other. 

lo  Now,  I  confess  myself  as  belonging  to  that  class  in 
the  country  who  contemplate  slavery  as  a  moral, 
social,  and  political  evil,  having  due  regard  for  its 
actual  existence  amongst  us  and  the  difficulties  of 
getting  rid  of  it  in  any  satisfactory  way,  and  to  all 

15  the  constitutional  obligations  which  have  been 
thrown  about  it;  but,  nevertheless,  desire  a  pohcy 
that  looks  to  the  prevention  of  it  as  a  wrong,  and 
looks  hopefully  to  the  time  when  as  a  wrong  it  may 
come  to  an  end. 

20  Judge  Douglas  has  again,  for,  I  believe,  the  fifth 
time,  if  not  the  seventh,  in  my  presence,  reiterated  his 
charge  of  conspiracy  or  combination  between  the  Na- 
tional Democrats  and  Republicans.  What  evidence 
Judge  Douglas  has  upon  this  subject  I  know  not,  in- 

25  asmuch  as  he  never  favors  us  with  any.  I  have  said 
upon  a  former  occasion,  and  I  do  not  choose  to  sup- 
press it  now,  that  I  have  no  objection  to  the  division 
in  the  Judge's  party.  He  got  it  up  himself.  It  was 
all  his  and  their  work.     He  had,  I  think,  a  great 

3°  deal  more  to  do  with  the  steps  that  led  to  the 
Lecompton  Constitution  than  Air.  Buchanan  had; 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REPLY  iij 

though  at  last,  when  they  reached  it,  they  quarreled 
over  it,  and  their  friends  divided  upon  it.  I  am 
very  free  to  confess  to  Judge  Douglas  that  I  have 
no  objection  to  the  division;  but  I  defy  the  Judge 
to  show  any  evidence  that  I  have  in  any  way  pro-  5 
moted  that  division,  unless  he  insists  on  being  a 
witness  himself  in  merely  saying  so.  I  can  give  all 
fair  friends  of  Judge  Douglas  here  to  untlcrstand 
exactly  the  view  that  Republicans  take  in  regard  to 
that  division.  Don't  you  remember  how  two  years  ^o 
ago  the  opponents  of  the  Democratic  party  were 
divided  between  Fremont  and  Fillmore?  I  guess 
you  do.  Any  Democrat  who  remembers  that  divi- 
sion will  remember  also  that  he  was  at  the  time 
very  glad  of  it,  and  then  he  wdll  be  able  to  see  all  ^5 
there  is  between  the  National  Democrats  and  the 
Republicans.  What  we  now  think  of  the  two  divi- 
sions of  Democrats,  you  then  thought  of  the  Fre- 
mont and  Fillmore  divisions.  That  is  all  there 
is  of  it.  20 

But  if  the  Judge  continues  to  put  forward  the 
declaration  that  there  is  an  unholy  and  unnatural 
alliance  between  the  Republicans  and  the  National 
Democrats,  I  now  want  to  enter  my  protest  against 
receiving  him  as  an  entirely  competent  witness  upon  25 
that  subject.  I  want  to  call  to  the  Judge's  atten- 
tion an  attack  he  made  upon  me  in  the  first  one  of 
these  debates,  at  Ottawa,  on  the  21st  of  August.  In 
order  to  fix  extreme  Abolitionism  upon  me.  Judge 
Douglas  read  a  set  of  resolutions  which  he  declared  3^ 
had  been  passed  by  a  Republican  State  Convention, 


114    PIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE  AT  GALESBURGH 

in  October,  1854,  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  and  he 
declared  I  had  taken  part  in  that  Convention.  It 
turned  out  that  although  a  few  men  calling  them- 
selves an  anti-Nebraska  State  Convention  had  sat 
5  at  Springfield  about  that  time,  yet  neither  did  I  take 
any  part  in  it,  nor  did  it  pass  the  resolutions  or 
any  such  resolutions  as  Judge  Douglas  read.  So 
apparent  had  it  become  that  the  resolutions  which 
he  read  had  not  been  passed  at  Springfield  at  all, 

10  nor  by  a  State  Convention  in  which  I  had  taken  part, 
that  seven  days  afterward,  at  Freeport,  Judge 
Douglas  declared  that  he  had  been  misled  by 
Charles  H.  Lanphier,  editor  of  the  "  State  Regis- 
ter," and  Thomas  L.  Harris,  member  of  Congress 

15  in  that  District,  and  he  promised  in  that  speech  that 
when  he  went  to  Springfield  he  would  investigate 
the  matter.  Since  then  Judge  Douglas  has  been  to 
Springfield,  and  I  presume  has  made  the  investiga- 
tion ;  but  a  month  has  passed  since  he  has  been  there, 

20  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  he  has  made  no  report  of  the 
result  of  his  investigation.  I  have  waited  as  I  think 
sufficient  time  for  the  report  of  that  investigation, 
and  I  have  some  curiosity  to  see  and  hear  it.  A 
fraud,  an  absolute  forgery  was  committed,  and  the 

^5  perpetration  of  it  was  traced  to  the  three, — Lan- 
phier, Harris,  and  Douglas.  Whether  it  can  be 
narrowed  in  any  way  so  as  to  exonerate  any  one  of 
them,  is  what  Judge  Douglas's  report  would  prob- 
ably show. 

^°  It  is  true  that  the  set  of  resolutions  read  by  Judge 
Douglas  were  published  in  the  Illinois  "  State  Reg- 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REPLY  115 

ister  "  on  the  i6th  of  October,  1854,  as  being  the 
resohitions  of  an  anti-Xebraska  Convention  which 
had  sat  in  that  same  month  of  October,  at  Spring- 
field. But  it  is  also  true  that  the  publication  in  the 
*'  Register  "  was  a  forgery  then,  and  the  question  5 
is  still  behind,  which  of  the  three  if  not  all  of  them, 
committed  that  forgery?  The  idea  that  it  was  done 
by  mistake,  is  absurd.  The  article  in  the  Illinois 
"  State  Register  "  contains  part  of  the  real  proceed- 
ings of  that  Springfield  Convention,  showing  that  10 
the  writer  of  the  article  had  the  real  proceedings 
before  him,  and  purposely  threw  out  the  genuine 
resolutions  passed  by  the  Convention,  and  fraudu- 
lently substituted  the  others.  Lanphier  then,  as 
now,  was  the  editor  of  the  "  Register,"  so  that  there  15 
seems  to  be  but  little  room  for  his  escape.  But  then 
it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  Lanphier  had  less 
interest  in  the  object  of  that  forgery  than  either  of 
the  other  two.  The  main  object  of  that  forgery  at 
that  time  was  to  beat  Yates  and  elect  Harris  to  20 
Congress,  and  that  object  was  known  to  be  exceed- 
ingly dear  to  Judge  Douglas  at  that  time.  Harris 
and  Douglas  were  both  in  Springfield  when  the 
Convention  was  in  session,  and  although  they  both 
left  before  the  fraud  appeared  in  the  "  Register,"  25 
subsequent  events  show  that  they  have  both  had 
their  eyes  fixed  upon  that  Convention. 

The  fraud  having  been  apparently  successful  upon 
the  occasion,  both  Harris  and  Douglas  have  more 
than  once  since  then  been  attempting  to  ])ut  it  to   30 
new  uses.     As  the  fisherman's  wife,  whose  drowned 


ii6    FIFTH  JOIXT  DEBATE  AT  GALESBVRGH 

husband  was  brought  home  with  his  body  full  of 
eels,  said  when  she  was  asked,  what  was  to  be 
done  with  him,  "Take  the  eels  out  and  set  him 
again,"  so  Harris  and  Douglas  have  shown  a  dis- 

5  position  to  take  the  eels  out  of  that  stale  fraud  by 
which  they  gained  Harris's  election,  and  set  the 
fraud  again  more  than  once.  On  the  9th  of  July, 
1856,  Douglas  attempted  a  repetition  of  it  upon 
Trumbull  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  of  the  United 

10  States,  as  will  appear  from  the  appendix  of  the 
*'  Congressional  Globe  "  of  that  date. 

On  the  9th  of  August,  Harris  attempted  it  again 
upon  Norton  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  as 
will  appear  by  the  same  documents, — the  appendix 

15  to  the  "  Congressional  Globe  "  of  that  date.  On  the 
2 1st  of  August  last,  all  three — Lanphier,  Douglas 
and  Harris — reattempted  it  upon  me  at  Ottawa.  It 
has  been  clung  to  and  played  out  again  and  again 
as  an  exceedingly  high  trump  by  this  blessed  trio. 

20  And  now  that  it  has  been  discovered  publicly  to  be 
a  fraud,  we  find  that  Judge  Douglas  manifests  no 
surprise  at  it  at  all.  He  makes  no  complaint  of 
Lanphier,  who  must  have  known  it  to  be  a  fraud 
from  the  beginning.     He,  Lanphier,  and  Harris  are 

25  just  as  cozy  now,  and  just  as  active  in  the  con- 
coction of  new  schemes  as  they  were  before  the 
general  discovery  of  this  fraud.  Now,  all  this  is 
very  natural  if  they  are  all  alike  guilty  in  that  fraud, 
and  it  is  very  unnatural  if  any  one  of  them  is  inno- 

30  cent.  Lanphier  perhaps  insists  that  the  rule  of 
honor  among  thieves  does  not  quite  require  him  to 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REPLY  117 

take  all  upon  himself,  and  consequently  niy  friend 
Judge  Douj::^las  finds  it  difficult  to  make  a  satisfac- 
tory report  upon  his  investigation.  lUit  meanwhile 
the  three  are  agreed  that  each  is  ''a  most  honorable 
man."  5 

Judge  Douglas  requires  an  indorsement  of  his 
truth  and  honor  by  a  re-election  to  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  he  makes  and  reports  against  me  and 
against  Judge  Trumbull,  day  after  day,  charges 
which  we  know  to  be  utterly  untrue,  without  for  a  10 
moment  seeming  to  think  that  this  one  unexplained 
fraud,  which  he  promised  to  investigate,  will  be  the 
least  drawback  to  his  claim  to  belief.  Harris  ditto. 
He  asks  a  re-election  to  the  lower  House  of  Con- 
gress without  seeming  to  remember  at  all  that  he  is  15 
involved  in  this  dishonorable  fraud!  The  Illinois 
"  State  Register,"  edited  by  Lanphier,  then,  as  now, 
the  central  organ  of  both  Harris  and  Douglas,  con- 
tinues to  din  the  public  ear  with  this  assertion,  with- 
out seeming  to  suspect  that  these  assertions  are  at  20 
all  lacking  in  title  to  belief. 

After  all,  the  question  still  recurs  upon  us.  How 
did  that  fraud  originally  get  into  the  "  State  Reg- 
ister"? Lanphier  then,  as  now,  w^as  the  editor  of 
that  paper.  Lanphier  knows.  Lanphier  cannot  be  25 
ignorant  of  how  and  by  whom  it  w^as  originally  con- 
cocted. Can  he  be  induced  to  tell,  or,  if  he  has  told, 
can  Judge  Douglas  be  induced  to  tell  how  it  orig- 
inally was  concocted?  It  may  be  true  that  Lan- 
phier insists  that  the  two  men  for  whose  benefit  it  30 
was  originally  devised  shall  at  least  bear  their  share 


Ii8    FIFTH   JOINT   DEBATE  AT   GALES  BURGH 

of  it!  How  that  is,  I  do  not  know,  and  while  it 
remains  unexplained,  I  hope  to  be  pardoned  if  I 
insist  that  the  mere  fact  of  Judge  Douglas  making 
charges  against  Trumbull  and  myself  is  not  quite 
5  sufficient  evidence  to  establish  them ! 

While  we  were  at  Freeport,  in  one  of  these  joint 
discussions,  I  answered  certain  interrogatories 
which  Judge  Douglas  had  propounded  to  me,  and 
then  in  turn  propounded  some  to  him,  which  he  in  a 

lo  sort  of  way  answered.  The  third  one  of  these  inter- 
rogatories I  have  with  me,  and  wish  now  to  make 
some  comments  upon  it.  It  was  in  these  words: 
*'  If  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  shall 
decide  that  the  States  cannot  exclude  slavery  from 

^5  their  limits,  are  you  in  favor  of  acquiescing  in, 
adhering  to,  and  following  such  decision  as  a  rule 
of  political  action?  " 

To  this  interrogatory  Judge  Douglas  made  no 
answer  in  any  just  sense  of  the  word.     He  con- 

20  tented  himself  with  sneering  at  the  thought  that 
it  was  possible  for  the  Supreme  Court  ever  to  make 
such  a  decision.  He  sneered  at  me  for  propound- 
ing the  interrogatory.  I  had  not  propounded  it 
without  some  reflection,  and  I  wish  now  to  address 

25  to  this  audience  some  remarks  upon  it. 

In  the  second  clause  of  the  sixth  article,  I  believe 
it  is,  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  we 
find  the  following  language :  "  This  Constitution 
and  the  laws  of  the  United  States  which  shall  be 

30  made  in  pursuance  thereof,  and  all  treaties  made,  or 
which  shall  be  made,  under  the  authority  of  the 


MR.   LIXCOLN'S   REPLY  119 

United  States,  shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land ; 
and  the  jiuli2:es  in  every  State  diall  be  bound 
thereby,  anything  in  the  Constitution  or  laws  of  any 
State  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding." 

The  essence  of  the  Dred  Scott  case  is  compressed  5 
into  the  sentence  which  I  will  now  read :  "  Now,  as 
we  have  already  said  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  opin- 
ion, upon  a  different  point,  the  right  of  property  in 
a  slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in  the 
Constitution."  I  repeat  it,  ''  The  right  of  property  10 
in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in  the 
Constitution!  "  What  is  it  to  be  ''  affirmed  "  in  the 
Constitution?  Made  firm  in  the  Constitution, — so 
made  that  it  cannot  be  separated  from  the  Consti- 
tution without  breaking  the  Constitution  ;  durable  as  15 
the  Constitution,  and  part  of  the  Constitution.  Now, 
remembering  the  provision  of  the  Constitution  which 
I  have  read;  affirming  that  that  instrument  is  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land;  that  the  Judges  of  every 
State  shall  be  bound  by  it,  any  law  or  constitution  20 
of  any  State  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding;  that 
the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  affirmed  in  that 
Constitution,  is  made,  formed  into,  and  cannot  be 
separated  from  it  without  breaking  it;  durable  as 
the  instrument ;  part  of  the  instrument ; — what  fol-  25 
lows  as  a  short  and  even  syllogistic  argument  from 
it?  I  think  it  follows,  and  I  submit  to  the  consid- 
eration of  men  capable  of  arguing,  whether  as  I 
state  it,  in  syllogistic  form,  the  argument  has  any 
fault  in  it?  30 

Nothing  in  the  Constitution  or  laws  of  any  State 


120    FIFTH   JOINT  DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

can  destroy  a  right  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

The  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and 
expressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
5   States. 

Therefore,  nothing  in  the  Constitution  or  laws  of 
any  State  can  destroy  the  right  of  property  in  a 
slave. 

I  believe  that  no  fault  can  be  pointed  out  in  that 

lo  argument;  assuming  the  truth  of  the  premises,  the 
conclusion,  so  far  as  I  have  capacity  at  all  to 
understand  it,  follows  inevitably.  There  is  a  fault 
in  it  as  I  think,  but  the  fault  is  not  in  the  reason- 
ing; but  the   falsehood  in   fact  is  a   fault  of  the 

15  premises.  I  believe  that  the  right  of  property  in 
a  slave  is  not  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in 
the  Constitution,  and  Judge  Douglas  thinks  it  is. 
I  believe  that  the  Supreme  Court  and  the  advocates 
of  that  decision  may  search  in  vain  for  the  place  in 

20  the  Constitution  where  the  right  of  a  slave  is  dis- 
tinctly and  expressly  affirmed.  I  say,  therefore, 
that  I  think  one  of  the  premises  is  not  true  in  fact. 
But  it  is  true  with  Judge  Douglas.  It  is  true  with 
the  Supreme  Court  who  pronounced  it.     They  are 

25  estopped  from  denying  it,  and  being  estopped  from 
denying  it,  the  conclusion  follows  that,  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States  being  the  supreme  law, 
no  constitution  or  law  can  interfere  with  it.  It 
being   affirmed   in   the   decision   that   the   right   of 

30  property  in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly 
affirmed  in  the  Constitution,  the  conclusion  inev- 


i 


MR.   LINCOLN'S   REPLY  121 

itably  follows  that  no  State  law  or  constitution  can 
destroy  that  right.  I  then  say  to  Judge  Douglas  and 
to  all  others  that  I  think  it  will  take  a  better  answer 
than  a  sneer  to  show  that  those  who  have  said 
that  the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  5 
expressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution,  are  not  pre- 
pared to  show  that  no  constitution  or  law  can  de- 
stroy that  right.  I  say  I  believe  it  will  take  a  far 
better  argument  than  a  mere  sneer  to  show  to  the 
minds  of  intelligent  men  that  whoever  has  so  said,  is  10 
not  prepared,  whenever  public  sentiment  is  so  far 
advanced  as  to  justify  it,  to  say  the  other.  This 
is  but  an  opinion,  and  the  opinion  of  one  very 
humble  man ;  but  it  is  my  opinion  that  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  as  it  is,  never  would  have  been  made  15 
in  its  present  form  if  the  party  that  made  it  had  not 
been  sustained  previously  by  the  elections.  My 
own  opinion  is,  that  the  new  Dred  Scott  decision, 
deciding  against  the  right  of  the  people  of  the 
States  to  exclude  slavery,  will  never  be  made,  if  20 
that  party  is  not  sustained  by  the  elections.  I 
believe,  further,  that  it  is  just  as  sure  to  be  made  as 
to-morrow  is  to  come,  if  that  party  shall  be  sus- 
tained. I  have  said,  upon  a  former  occasion,  and 
I  repeat  it  now,  that  the  course  of  argument  that  25 
Judge  Douglas  makes  use  of  upon  this  subject  (I 
charge  not  his  motives  in  this),  is  preparing  the 
public  mind  for  that  new  Dred  Scott  decision.  I 
have  asked  him  again  to  point  out  to  me  the  reasons 
for  his  first  adherence  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision  3° 
as  it  is.     I  have  turned  his  attention  to  the  fact 


122    FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE  AT  GALESBURGH 

that  General  Jackson  differed  with  him  in  regard 
to  the  poUtical  obhgation  of  a  Supreme  Court 
decision.  I  have  asked  his  attention  to  the  fact 
that  Jefferson  differed  with  him  in  regard  to  the 

5  poHtical  obhgation  of  a  Supreme  Court  decision. 
Jefferson  said  that  "  Judges  are  as  honest  as  other 
men,  and  not  more  so."  And  he  said,  substantially, 
that  "  whenever  a  free  people  should  give  up  in 
absolute  submission  to  any  department  of  govern- 

lo  ment,  retaining  for  themselves  no  appeal  from  it, 
their  liberties  were  gone."  I  have  asked  his  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  Cincinnati  platform  upon 
which  he  says  he  stands,  disregards  a  time-honored 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  in  denying  the  power 

15  of  Congress  to  establish  a  National  Bank.  I  have 
asked  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  himself  was 
one  of  the  most  active  instruments  at  one  time  in 
breaking  down  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  of 
Illinois,  because  it  had  made  a  decision  distasteful 

20  to  him, — a  struggle  ending  in  the  remarkable  cir- 
cumstance of  his  sitting  down  as  one  of  the  new 
Judges  who  were  to  overslaugh  that  decision;  get- 
ting his  title  of  Judge  in  that  very  way. 

So  far  in  this  controversy  I  can  get  no  answer 

25  at  all  from  Judge  Douglas  upon  these  subjects. 
Not  one  can  I  get  from  him,  except  that  he  swells 
himself  up  and  says,  "  All  of  us  who  stand  by  the 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  are  the  friends  of 
the  Constitution;  all  you  fellows  that  dare  question 

30  it  in  any  way,  are  the  enemies  of  the  Constitution." 
Now,  in  this  very  devoted  adherence  to  this  deci- 


MR.   LIXCOLN'S  REPLY  123 

sion,  in  opposition  to  all  the  great  political  leaders 
whom  he  has  recognized  as  leaders,  in  opposition 
to  his  fonner  self  and  history,  there  is  something 
very  marked.  And  the  manner  in  which  he  adheres 
to  it, — not  as  being  right  upon  the  merits,  as  he  con-  5 
ceives  (because  he  did  not  discuss  that  at  all), 
but  as  being  absolutely  obligatory  upon  everyone, 
simply  because  of  the  source  from  whence  it 
comes, — as  that  which  no  man  can  gainsay,  what- 
ever it  may  be;  this  is  another  marked  feature  of  10 
his  adherence  to  that  decision.  It  marks  it  in  this 
respect  that  it  commits  him  to  the  next  decision, 
whenever  it  comes,  as  being  as  obligatory  as  this  one, 
since  he  does  not  investigate  it,  and  won't  inquire 
whether  this  opinion  is  right  or  wrong.  So  he  takes  15 
the  next  one  without  inquiring  whether  it  is  right 
or  wrong.  He  teaches  men  this  doctrine,  and  in  so 
doing  prepares  the  public  mind  to  take  the  next 
decision  when  it  comes  without  any  inquiry.  In 
this  I  think  I  argue  fairly  (without  questioning  20 
motives  at  all)  that  Judge  Douglas  is  most  ingeni- 
ously and  powerfully  preparing  the  public  mind  to 
take  that  decision  when  it  comes;  and  not  only  so, 
but  he  is  doing  it  in  various  other  ways.  In  these 
general  maxims  about  liberty,  in  his  assertions  that  25 
he  "  don't  care  whether  slavery  is  voted  up  or  voted 
down  " ;  that  "  whoever  wants  slavery  has  a  right  to 
have  it  " ;  that  ''  upon  principles  of  equality  it  should 
be  allowed  to  go  everywhere  " ;  that  "  there  is  no 
inconsistency  between  free  and  slave  institutions."  30 
In  this  he  is  also  preparing  (whether  purposely  or 


124    FIFTH   JOIXT   DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH     ' 

not)  the  way  for  making  the  institution  of  slavery 
national!  I  repeat  again,  for  I  wish  no  misunder- 
standing, that  I  do  not  charge  that  he  means  it  so ; 
but  I  call  upon  your  minds  to  inquire,  if  you  were 
5  going  to  get  the  best  instrument  you  could,  and  then 
set  it  to  work  in  the  most  ingenious  way,  to  prepare 
the  public  mind  for  this  movement,  operating  in 
the  Free  States,  where  there  is  now  an  abhorrence 
of   the   institution   of   slaver}^   could   you   find   an 

lo  instrument  so  capable  of  doing  it  as  Judge  Doug- 
las, or  one  employed  in  so  apt  a  way  to  do  it  ? 

I  have  said  once  before,  and  I  will  repeat  it  now, 
that  Mr.  Clay,  when  he  was  once  answering  an  ob- 
jection to  the  Colonization  Society,  that  it  had  a 

15  tendency  to  the  ultimate  emancipation  of  the  slaves, 
said  that  **  those  who  would  repress  all  tendencies 
to  liberty  and  ultimate  emancipation  must  do  more 
than  put  down  the  benevolent  efforts  of  the  Coloni- 
zation Society, — they  must  go  back  to  the  era  of  our 

20  liberty  and  independence,  and  muzzle  the  cannon 
that  thunders  its  annual  joyous  return ;  they  must 
blot  out  the  moral  lights  around  us ;  they  must  pene- 
trate the  human  soul,  and  eradicate  the  light  of 
reason  and  the  love  of  liberty !  "    And  I  do  think — 

25  I  repeat,  though  I  said  it  on  a  former  occasion — 
that  Judge  Douglas  and  whoever,  like  him,  teaches 
that  the  negro  has  no  share,  humble  though  it  may 
be,  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  is  going 
back  to  the  era  of  our  liberty  and  independence,  and, 

30  so  far  as  in  him  lies,  muzzling  the  cannon  that 
thunders  its  annual  joyous  return ;  that  he  is  blow- 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REPLY  125 

ing  out  the  moral  lights  around  us,  when  he  con- 
tends that  whoever  wants  slaves  has  a  right  to  hold 
them ;  that  he  is  penetrating,  so  far  as  lies  in  his 
power,  the  human  soul,  and  eradicating  the  light  of 
reason  and  the  love  of  liberty,  when  he  is  in  every  5 
possible  way  preparing  the  public  mind,  by  his  vast 
influence,  for  making  the  institution  of  slavery  per- 
petual and  national. 

There  is,  my  friends,  only  one  other    point    to 
which  I  will  call  your  attenton  for  the  remaining   10 
time  that  I  have  left  me,  and  perhaps  I  shall  not 
occupy  the  entire  time  that  I  have,  as  that  one  point 
may  not  take  me  clear  through  it. 

Among  the   interrogatories  that  Judge  Douglas 
propounded  to  me  at  Freeport,  there    was    one    in    15 
about  this  language :    **  Are  you  opposed  to  the  ac- 
quisition of  any   further    territory    to    the    United 
States,  unless  slavery  shall  first  be  prohibited  there- 
in?"   I  answered,  as  I  thought,  in  this  way,  that  I 
am  not  generally  opposed  to  the  acquisition  of  addi-   20 
tional  territory,  and  that  I  would  support  a  proposi- 
tion for  the  acquisition  of  additional  territory  ac- 
cording as  my  supporting  it  was  or  was  not  calcu- 
lated to  aggravate  this    slavery    question    amongst 
us.     I  then  proposed  to  Judge  Douglas  another  in-  25 
terrogatory,  which  was  correlative  to  that :  "  Are 
you  in  favor  of  acquiring  additional  territory,  in  dis- 
regard of  how  it  may  affect  us  upon  the  slavery 
question?"     Judge  Douglas  answered. — that  is,  in 
his  own  way  he  answered  it.     I  believe  that,  al-  30 
though  he  took  a  good  many  words  to  answer  it,  it 


126    FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE  AT   GALESBURGH     • 

was  a  little  more  fully  answered  than  any  other. 
The  substance  of  his  answer  was,  that  this  country 
would  continue  to  expand ;  that  it  would  need  addi- 
tional territory ;  that  it  was  as  absurd  to  suppose  that 
5  we  could  continue  upon  our  present  territory,  en- 
larging in  population  as  we  are,  as  it  would  be  to 
hoop  a  boy  twelve  years  of  age,  and  expect  him  to 
grow  to  man's  size  without  bursting  the  hoops.  I 
believe  it  was  something  like  that.     Consequently, 

lo  he  was  in  favor  of  the  acquisition  of  further  terri- 
tory as  fast  as  we  might  need  it,  in  disregard  of  how 
it  might  affect  the  slavery  question.  I  do  not  say 
this  as  giving  his  exact  language,  but  he  said  so 
substantially;  and  he  would  leave  the  question  of 

15  slavery  where  the  territory  was  acquired,  to  be  set- 
tled by  the  people  of  the  acquired  territory.  ["  That's 
the  doctrine."]  May  be  it  is;  let  us  consider  that 
for  a  while.  This  will  probably,  in  the  run  of 
things,  become  one  of  the  concrete  manifestations  of 

20  this  sL  very  question.  If  Judge  Douglas's  policy 
upon  this  question  succeeds,  and  gets  fairly  settled 
down,  until  all  opposition  is  crushed  out,  the  next 
thing  will  be  a  grab  for  the  territory  of  poor  Mexico, 
an  invasion  of  the  rich  lands   of    South    America, 

25  then  the  adjoining  islands  will  follow,  each  one  of 
which  promises  additional  slave-fields.  And  this 
question  is  to  be  left  to  the  people  of  those  countries 
for  settlement.  When  we  get  ]\Iexico,  I  don't  know 
whether  the  Judge  will  be  in  favor  of  the  Mexican 

30  people  that  we  get  with  it  settling  that  question  for 
themselves  and  all  others;  because    we   know   the 


MR    LINCOLX'S  REPLY  127 

Judge  has  a  great  horror  for  mongrels,  and  I  under- 
stand that  the  people  of  Mexico  are  most  decidedly 
a  race  of  mongrels.  I  understand  that  there  is  not 
more  than  one  person  there  out  of  eight  who  is 
pure  white,  and  I  suppose  from  the  Judge's  previous  5 
declaration  that  when  we  get  Mexico  or  any  con- 
siderable portion  of  it,  that  he  will  be  in  favor  of 
these  mongrels  settling  the  question,  which  would 
bring  him  somewhat  into  collision  with  his  horror 
of  an  inferior  race.  10 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  though,  that  this  power  of 
acquiring  additional  territory  is  a  power  confided  to 
the  President  and  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 
It  is  a  power  not  under  the  control  of  the  representa- 
tives of  the  people  any  further  than  they,  the  Presi-  15 
dent  and  the  Senate,  can  be  considered  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people.  Let  me  illustrate  that  by  a 
case  we  have  in  our  history.  When  we  acquired 
the  territory  from  Mexico  in  the  Mexican  war,  the 
House  of  Representatives,  composed  of  the  imme-  20 
diate  representatives  of  the  people,  all  the  time  in- 
sisted that  the  territory  thus  to  be  acquired  should 
be  brought  in  upon  condition  that  slavery  should 
be  forever  prohibited  therein,  upon  the  tenns  and 
in  the  language  that  slavery  had  been  prohibited  25 
from  coming  into  this  country.  That  was  insisted 
upon  constantly  and  never  failed  to  call  forth  an 
assurance  that  any  territory  thus  acquired  should 
have  that  prohibition  in  it,  so  far  as  the  House  of 
Representatives  was  concerned.  lUit  at  last  the  30 
President  and  Senate  acquired  the  territory  with- 


128    FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

out  asking  the  House  of  Representatives  anything 
about  it,  and  took  it  without  that  prohibition.  They 
have  the  power  of  acquiring  territory  without  the 
immediate  representatives  of  the  people  being  called 
5  upon  to  say  anything  about  it,  and  thus  furnishing 
a  very  apt  and  powerful  means  of  bringing  new 
territory  into  the  Union,  and,  when  it  is  once 
brought  into  the  country,  involving  us  anew  in  this 
slaver}'  agitation.    It  is,  therefore,  as  I  think,  a  very 

lo  important  question  for  the  consideration  of  the 
American  people,  whether  the  policy  of  bringing  in 
additional  territory,  without  considering  at  all  how 
it  will  operate  upon  the  safety  of  the  Union  in  refer- 
ence to  this  one  great  disturbing  element  in  our  na- 

15  tional  politics,  shall  be  adopted  as  the  policy  of  the 
country.  You  will  bear  in  mind  that  it  is  to  be  ac- 
quired, according  to  the  Judge's  view,  as  fast  as  it 
is  needed,  and  the  indefinite  part  of  this  proposition 
is  that  we  have  only  Judge  Douglas  and  his  class  of 

20  men  to  decide  how  fast  it  is  needed.  We  have  no 
clear  and  certain  way  of  determining  or  demonstrat- 
ing how  fast  territory'  is  needed  by  the  necessities 
of  the  country.  Whoever  wants  to  go  out  filibuster- 
ing, then,  thinks  that  more    territory    is    needed. 

25  Whoever  wants  wider  slave-fields,  feels  sure  that 
some  additional  territory  is  needed  as  slave-territory. 
Then  it  is  as  easy  to  show  the  necessity  of  additional 
slave-territory  as  it  is  to  assert  anything  that  is  in- 
capable of  absolute  demonstration.     Whatever  mo- 

30  tive  a  man  or  set  of  men  may  have  for  making 
annexation  of  property  or  territory,  it  is  very  easy 


AfR.   LIXCOLX'S  REPLY  129 

to  assert,  but  much  less  easy  to  disprove,  that  it  is 
necessary  for  the  wants  of  the  country. 

And  now  it  only  remains  for  me  to  say  that  I 
think  it  is  a  very  grave  question  for  the  people  of 
this  Union  to  consider,  whether,  in  view  of  the  fact    5 
that  this  slavery  question  has  been  the  only  one  that 
has  ever  endangered   our   Republican   institutions, 
the  only  one  that  has  ever  threatened  or  menaced  a 
dissolution  of  the  Union,  that  has  ever  disturbed  us 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  us  fear  for  the  perpetuity  10 
of  our  liberty, — in  view  of  these  facts,  I  think  it  is 
an  exceedingly  interesting  and  important  question 
for  this  people  to  consider  whether  we  shall  engage 
in  the  policy  of  acquiring  additional  territory,  dis- 
carding altogether  from  our    consideration,    while  15 
obtaining  new  territory,  the  question  how    it    may 
affect  us  in  regard  to  this,  the  only  endangering  ele- 
ment to  our  liberties  and  national  greatness.     The 
Judge's  view  has  been  expressed.     I,  in  my  answer 
to  his  question,  have  expressed  mine.     I  think  it  20 
will  become  an  important  and    practical    question. 
Our  views  are  before  the  public.     I  am  willing  and 
anxious  that  they  should  consider  them  fully;  that 
they  should  turn  it  about  and  consider  the  impor- 
tance of  the  question,  and  arrive  at  a  just  conclusion   25 
as  to  whether  it  is  or  is  not  wise  in  the  people  of 
this  Union,  in  the  acquisition  of  new  territory,  to 
consider  whether  it  will  add  to  the  disturbance  that 
is  existing  amongst  us, — whether  it  will  add  to  the 
one  only  danger  that  has  ever  threatened  the  per-   30 
petuity  of  the  Union  or  our  own  liberties.     I  think 


130    FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

it  is  extremely  important  that  they  shall  decide,  and 
rightly  decide,  that  question  before  entering  upon 
that  policy. 

And  now,  my  friends,  having  said  the  little  I  wish 
5  to  say  upon  this  head,  whether  I  have  occupied  the 
whole  of  the  remnant  of  my  time  or  not,  I  believe 
I  could  not  enter  upon  any  new  topic  so  as  to  treat 
it  fully,  without  transcending  my  time,  which  I 
would  not  for  a  moment  think  of  doing.  I  give  way 
lo  to  Judge  Douglas. 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   REJOINDER 

Gentlemen:  The  highest  compliment  you  can 
pay  me  during  the  brief  half-hour  that  I  have  to 
conclude  is  by  observing  a  strict  silence.     I  desire 

^5  to  be  heard  rather  than  to  be  applauded. 

The  first  criticism  that  Mr.  Lincoln  makes  on  my 
speech  was  that  it  was  in  substance  what  I  have  said 
everywhere  else  in  the  State  where  I  have  addressed 
the  people.     I  wish  I  could  say  the  same  of  his 

2o  speech.  Why,  the  reason  I  complain  of  him  is  be- 
cause he  makes  one  speech  north,  and  another  south. 
Because  he  has  one  set  of  sentiments  for  the  Aboli- 
tion counties,  and  another  set  for  the  counties  op- 
posed   to    Abolitionism.     My    point    of    complaint 

25  against  him  is  that  I  cannot  induce  him  to  hold  up 
the  same  standard,  to  carry  the  same  flag,  in  all 
parts  of  the  State.  He  does  not  pretend,  and  no 
other  man  will,  that  I  have  one  set  of  principles  for 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   REJOINDER  131 

Galcsl)ur£;li,  and  another  for  Charleston.  Ifc  docs 
not  pretend  that  1  hold  to  one  doctrine  in  Chicago, 
and  an  opposite  one  in  Joneshoro.  I  have  proved 
that  he  has  a  different  set  of  principles  for  each  of 
these  localities.  All  I  asked  of  him  was  that  he  5 
should  deliver  the  si)eech  that  he  has  made  here  to- 
day in  Coles  County  instead  of  in  old  Knox.  It 
would  have  settled  the  question  between  us  in  that 
doubtful  county.  Here  I  understand  him  to  reaffirm 
the  doctrine  of  neci^ro  equalit}-,  and  to  assert  that  by  10 
the  Declaration  uf  Independence  the  negro  is  de- 
clared equal  to  the  white  man.  He  tells  you  to-day 
that  the  negro  was  included  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  when  it  asserted  that  all  men  were 
created  equal.     [**We  believe  it."]     \'ery  well.  15 

Mr.  Lincoln  asserts  to-day,  as  he  did  at  Chicago, 
that  the  negro  was  included  in  that  clause  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  which  says  that  all 
men  were  created  equal  and  endowed  by  the  Creator 
with  certain  inalienable  rights,  among  which  are  20 
Hfe,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  If  the 
negro  was  made  his  equal  and  mine,  if  that  equality 
was  established  by  divine  law,  and  was  the  negro's 
inalienable  right  how  came  he  to  say  at  Charleston 
to  the  Kentuckians  residing  in  that  section  of  our  25 
State  that  the  negro  was  physically  inferior  to  the 
white  man,  belonged  to  an  inferior  race,  and  he  was 
for  keei)ing  him  in  that  inferior  condition.  There 
he  gave  the  j)eople  to  understand  that  there  was  no 
moral  question  involved,  because,  the  inferiority  be-  30 
ing  established,  it  was  only  a  question  of  degree,  and 


132    FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE   AT   GALES  BURGH 

not  a  question  of  right ;  here,  to-day,  instead  of 
making  it  a  question  of  degree,  he  makes  it  a  moral 
question,  says  that  it  is  a  great  crime  to  hold  the 
negro  in  that  inferior  condition.  [''  He's  right."] 
5  Is  he  right  now,  or  was  he  right  in  Charleston? 
["  Both."]  He  is  right,  then,  sir,  in  your  estimation, 
not  because  he  is  consistent,  but  because  he  can  trim 
his  principles  any  way,  in  any  section,  so  as  to  se- 
cure votes.     All  I  desire  of  him    is    that    he    will 

lo  declare  the  same  principles  in  the  south  that  he  does 
in  the  north. 

But  did  you  notice  how  he  answered  my  position 
that  a  man  should  hold  the  same  doctrines  through- 
out the  length  and  breadth  of  this  Republic  ?  He  said, 

^5  "  Would  Judge  Douglas  go  to  Russia  and  proclaim 
the  same  principles  he  does  here  ?  "  I  would  remind 
him  that  Russia  is  not  under  the  American  Consti- 
tution. If  Russia  was  a  part  of  the  American  Re- 
public, under  our  Federal  Constitution,  and  I  was 

2o  sworn  to  support  the  Constitution,  I  would  maintain 
the  same  doctrine  in  Russia  that  I  do  in  Illinois. 
The  slaveholding  States  are  governed  by  the  same 
Federal  Constitution  as  ourselves,  and  hence  a 
man's  principles,  in  order  to  be  in  harmony  with  the 

25  Constitution,  must  be  the  same  in  the  South  as  they 
are  in  the  North,  the  same  in  the  Free  States  as  they 
are  in  the  Slave  States.  Whenever  a  man  advocates 
one  set  of  principles  in  one  section,  and  another  set 
in  another  section,  his  opinions  are  in  violation  of 

30  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution  which  he  has  sworn  to 
support.     When  Mr.  Lincoln  went  to  Congress  in 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   REJOINDER  133 

1847,  ^^^^y  laying  his  hand  uj)on  the  Holy  Evan- 
gcHsts,  niade  a  solemn  vow,  in  the  presence  of  high 
Heaven,  that  he  would  be  faithful  to  the  Constitu- 
tion, what  did  he  mean. — the  Constitution  as  he  ex- 
pounds it  in  Galesburgh,  or  the  Constitution  as  he  5 
expounds  it  in  Charleston? 

Mr.  Lincoln  has  devoted  considerable  time  to  the 
circumstance  that  at  Ottawa  I  read  a  series  of  reso- 
lutions as  having  been  adopted  at  Springfield,  in  this 
State,  on  the  4th  or  5th  of  October,   1854,  which    10 
happened  not  to  have  been  adopted  there.     He  has 
used  hard  names ;  has  dared  to  talk  about  fraud, 
about  forgery,  and  has  insinuated  that  there  was  a 
conspiracy  between  Mr.  Lanphier,  Mr.  Harris,  and 
myself  to  perpetrate  a  forgery.    Now,  bear  in  mind   15 
that  he  does  not  deny  that  these  resolutions  were 
adopted  in  a  majority  of  all  the  Republican  counties 
of  this  State  in  that  year ;  he  does  not  deny  that  they 
were  declared  to  be  the  platform  of  this  Repuljlican 
party    in    the   first    Congressional    District,    in    the   20 
second,  in  the  third,  and  in  many  counties  of  the 
fourth,  and  that  they  thus  became  the  platform  of 
his  party  in  a  majority  of  the  counties  upon  which 
he  now  relies  for  support ;  he    does    not    deny    the 
truthfulness  of  the  resolutions,  but  takes  exception   25 
to  the  spot  on  which  they  were  adopted.     He  takes 
to  himself  great  merit  because  he  thinks  they  were 
not  adopted  on  the  right  spot  for  me  to  use  them 
against  him,  just  as  he  was  very  severe  in  Congress 
upon   the   Government    of    his    country    when    he  30 
thought  that  he  had  discovered  that  the  Mexican 


134    FIFTH  JOINT   DEBATE  AT   GALESBURGH 

war  was  not  begun  in  the  right  spot,  and  was  there 
fore  unjust.  He  tries  very  hard  to  make  out  that 
there  is  something  very  extraordinary  in  the  place 
where  the  thing  was  done,  and  not  in  the  thing  itself. 
5  I  never  believed  before  that  Abraham  Lincoln  would 
be  guilty  of  what  he  has  done  this  day  in  regard  to 
those  resolutions.  In  the  first  place,  the  moment  it 
was  intimated  to  me  that  they  had  been  adopted  at 
Aurora  and  Rockford  instead  of  Springfield,  I  did 

lo  not  wait  for  him  to  call  my  attention  to  the  fact, 
but  led  off,  and  explained  in  my  first  meeting  after 
the  Ottawa  debate  what  the  mistake  was,  and  how  it 
had  been  made.  I  supposed  that  for  an  honest  man, 
conscious  of  his  own    rectitude,    that    explanation 

15  would  be  sufficient.  I  did  not  wait  for  him,  after 
the  mistake  was  made,  to  call  my  attention  to  it,  but 
frankly  explained  it  at  once  as  an  honest  man  would. 
I  also  gave  the  authority  on  which  I  had  stated  that 
these  resolutions  were  adopted  by  the  Springfield 

20  Republican  Convention ;  that  I  had  seen  them 
quoted  by  Major  Harris  in  a  debate  in  Congress, 
as  having  been  adopted  by  the  first  Republican  State 
Convention  in  Illinois,  and  that  I  had  written  to 
him  and  asked  him  for  the  authority  as  to  the  time 

25  and  place  of  their  adoption ;  that.  Major  Harris 
being  extremely  ill,  Charles  H.  Lanphier  had  writ- 
ten to  me,  for  him,  that  they  were  adopted  at 
Springfield  on  the  5th  of  October,  1854,  and  had 
sent  me  a  copy  of  the  Springfield  paper  containing 

30  them.  I  read  them  from  the  newspaper  just  as  Mr. 
Lincoln  reads  the  proceedings    of    meetings    held 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   REJOINDER  135 

years  ago  from  the  newspapers.  After  giving  that 
explanation,  I  did  not  think  there  was  an  honest 
man  in  the  State  of  IlHnois  who  doubted  that  I  had 
been  led  into  the  error,  if  it  was  such,  innocently, 
in  the  way  I  detailed ;  and  I  will  now  say  that  I  do  5 
not  now  believe  that  there  is  an  honest  man  on  the 
face  of  the  globe  who  will  not  regard  with  abhor- 
rence and  disgust  Mr.  Lincoln's  insinuations  of  my 
complicity  in  that  forgery,  if  it  was  a  forgery.  Does 
Mr.  Lincoln  wish  to  push  these  things  to  the  point  io 
of  personal  difficulties  here?  I  commenced  this 
contest  by  treating  him  courteously  and  kindly ;  I 
always  spoke  of  him  in  words  of  respect ;  and  in 
return  he  has  sought,  and  is  now  seeking  to  divert 
public  attention  from  the  enormity  of  his  revolution-  ^5 
ary  principles  by  impeaching  men's  sincerity  and 
integrity,  and  inviting  personal  quarrels. 

I  desired  to  conduct  this  contest  with  him  like  a 
gentleman ;  but  I  spurn  the  insinuation  of  complicity 
and  fraud  made  upon  the  simple  circumstance  of  an   20 
editor  of  a  newspaper  having  made  a  mistake  as  to 
the  place  where  a  thing  was  done,  but  not  as  to  the 
thing  itself.    These  resolutions  were  the  platform  of 
this  Republican  party  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  of  that  year. 
They  were  adopted  in  a  majority  of  the  Republican   25 
counties  in  the   State ;  and   when   I  asked  him  at 
Ottawa   whether   they   formed   the   platform   upon 
which  he  stood,  he  did  not  answer,  and  I  could  not 
get  an  answer  out  of  him.     He  then  thought,  as  I 
thought,  that  those  resolutions  were  adopted  at  the   30 
Springfield  Convention,  but  excused  himself  by  say- 


136    FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE   AT   GALES  BURGH 

ing  that  he  was  not  there  when  they  were  adopted, 
but  had  gone  to  Tazewell  court  in  order  to  avoid 
being  present  at  the  Convention.  He  saw  them  pub- 
lished as  having  been  adopted  at  Springfield,  and 
5  so  did  I,  and  he  knew  that  if  there  was  a  mistake 
in  regard  to  them,  that  I  had  nothing  under  heaven 
to  do  with  it.  Besides,  you  find  that  in  all  these 
northern  counties  where  the  Republican  candidates 
are  running  pledged  to  him,  that  the  Conventions 
lo  which  nominated  them  adopted  that  identical  plat- 
form. 

One  cardinal  point  in  that  platform  which  he 
shrinks  from  is  this:  that  there  shall  be  no  more 
Slave  States  admitted  into  the  Union,  even  if  the 

15  people  want  them.  Lovejoy  stands  pledged  against 
the  admission  of  any  more  Slave  States.  ['*  Right, 
so  do  we."]  So  do  you,  you  say.  Farnsworth 
stands  pledged  against  the  admission  of  any  more 
Slave  States.    Washburne  stands  pledged  the  same 

20  way.  The  candidate  for  the  Legislature  who  is  run- 
ning on  Lincoln's  ticket  in  Henderson  and  Warren, 
stands  committed  by  his  vote  in  the  Legislature  to 
the  same  thing ;  and  I  am  informed,  but  do  not  know 
of  the  fact,  that  your  candidate  here    is    also    so 

25  pledged.  ["Hurrah  for  him!  good!"]  Now,  you 
Republicans  all  hurrah  for  him,  and  for  the  doctrine 
of  no  more  Slave  States.  And  yet  Lincoln  tells 
you  that  his  conscience  will  not  permit  him  to  sanc- 
tion that  doctrine,  and  complains  because  the  reso- 

3°  lutions  I  read  at  Ottawa  made  him,  as  a  member  of 
the  party,  responsible  for  sanctioning  the  doctrine 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   REJOINDER  137 

• 

of  no  more  Slave  States.  You  are  one  way,  you 
confess,  and  he  is,  or  pretends  to  be,  the  other;  and 
yet  you  are  both  governed  by  principle  in  supporting^ 
one  another.  If  it  be  true,  as  I  have  shown  it  is, 
that  the  whole  Republican  party  in  the  northern  part  5 
of  the  State  stands  committed  to  the  doctrine  of 
no  more  Slave  States,  and  that  this  same  doctrine  is 
repudiated  by  the  Republicans  in  the  other  part  of 
the  State,  I  wonder  whether  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his 
party  do  not  present  the  case  which  he  cited  from  10 
the  Scriptures,  of  a  house  divided  against  itself 
which  cannot  stand !  I  desire  to  know  what  are  Mr. 
Lincoln's  principles  and  the  principles  of  his  party? 
I  hold,  and  the  party  with  which  I  am  identified 
hold,  that  the  people  of  each  State,  old  and  new,  15 
have  the  right  to  decide  the  slavery  question  for 
themselves ;  and  when  I  used  the  remark  that  I 
did  not  care  whether  slavery  was  voted  up  or  down, 
I  used  it  in  the  connection  that  I  was  for  allowing 
Kansas  to  do  just  as  she  pleased  on  the  slavery  qucs-  20 
tion.  I  said  that  I  did  not  care  whether  they  voted 
slavery  up  or  viown,  because  they  had  the  right  to 
do  as  they  pleased  on  the  question,  and  therefore 
my  action  would  not  be  controlled  by  any  such  con- 
sideration. Why  cannot  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  the  25 
party  with  which  he  acts,  speak  out  their  principles 
so  that  they  may  be  understood?  Why  do  they 
claim  to  be  one  thing  in  one  part  of  the  State,  and 
another  in  the  other  part?  Whenever  I  allude  to 
the  Abolition  doctrines,  which  he  considers  a  slander  30 
to  be  charged  with  being  in  favor  of,  you  all  in- 


138    FIFTH   JOINT  DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

dorse  them,  and  hurrah  for  them,  not  knowing 
that  your  candidate  is  ashamed  to  acknowledge 
them. 

I  have  a  few  words  to  say  upon  the  Dred  Scott 

5  decision,  which  has  troubled  the  brain  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln so  much.  He  insists  that  that  decision  would 
carry  slavery  into  the  Free  States,  notwithstanding 
that  the  decision  says  directly  the  opposite,  and 
goes  into  a  long  argument  to  make  you  believe  that 

lo  I  am  in  favor  of,  and  would  sanction,  the  doctrine 
that  would  allow  slaves  to  be  brought  here  and  held 
as  slaves  contrary  to  our  Constitution  and  laws. 
Mr.  Lincoln  knew  better  when  he  asserted  this ;  he 
knew  that  one  newspaper,  and,  so  far  as  is  within 

15  my  knowledge,  but  one,  ever  asserted  that  doctrine, 
and  that  I  was  the  first  man  in  either  House  of 
Congress  that  read  that  article  in  debate,  and  de- 
nounced it  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  as  revolution- 
ary.   When  the  Washington  "Union"  on  the  17th 

20  of  last  November,  published  an  article  to  that  effect, 
I  branded  it  at  once,  and  denounced  it ;  and  hence 
the  "  Union  "  has  been  pursuing  me  ever  since.  Mr. 
Toombs,  of  Georgia,  replied  to  me,  and  said  that 
there  was  not  a  man  in  any  of  the  Slave  States 

25  south  of  the  Potomac  River  that  held  any  such  doc- 
trine. Mr.  Lincoln  knows  that  there  is  not  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Supreme  Court  who  holds  that  doctrine ; 
he  knows  that  every  one  of  them,  as  shown  by  their 
opinions,  holds  the    reverse.     Why    this    attempt, 

30  then,  to  bring  the  Supreme  Court  into  disrepute 
among  the  people  ?    It  looks  as  if  there  was  an  effort 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   REJOINDER  139 

being  made  to  destroy  public  confidence  in  the  high- 
est judicial  tribunal  on  earth.  Suppose  he  succeeds 
in  destroying  public  confidence  in  the  court,  so  that 
the  people  will  not  respect  its  decisions,  but  will 
feel  at  liberty  to  disregard  them  and  resist  the  laws  5 
of  the  land,  what  will  he  have  gained?  He  will 
have  changed  the  government  from  one  of  laws 
into  that  of  a  mob,  in  which  the  strong  arm  of 
violence  will  be  substituted  for  the  decisions  of 
the  courts  of  justice.  He  complains  because  I  did  i^ 
not  go  into  an  argument  reviewing  Chief  Justice 
Taney's  opinion,  and  the  other  opinions  of  the  dif- 
ferent judges,  to  determine  whether  their  reasoning 
is  right  or  wTong  on  the  questions  of  law.  What  use 
would  that  be?  He  wants  to  take  an  appeal  from  15 
the  Supreme  Court  to  this  meeting,  to  determine 
whether  the  questions  of  law  were  decided  properly. 
He  is  going  to  appeal  from  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  to  every  town  meeting,  in  the 
hope  that  he  can  excite  a  prejudice  against  that  20 
court,  and  on  the  wave  of  that  prejudice  ride  into 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  when  he  could  not 
get  there  on  his  own  principles  or  his  own  merits. 
Suppose  he  should  succeed  in  getting  into  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  what  then  will  he  have  25 
to  do  with  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in 
the  Dred  Scott  case?  Can  he  reverse  that  decision 
when  he  gets  there?  Can  he  act  upon  it?  Has  the 
Senate  any  right  to  reverse  it  or  revise  it?  He  will 
not  pretend  that  it  has.  Then  why  drag  the  matter  30 
into  this  contest,  unless  for  the  purpose  of  making 


140    FIFTH   JOINT   DEBATE   AT   GALESBURGH 

a  false  issue,  by  which  he  can  direct  public  atten- 
tion from  the  real  issue. 

He  has  cited  General  Jackson  in  justification  of 
the  war  he  is  making  on  the  decision  of  the  court. 
5  Mr.  Lincoln  misunderstands  the  history  of  the 
country  if  he  believes  there  is  any  parallel  in  the 
two  cases.  It  is  true  that  the  Supreme  Court  once 
decided  that  if  a  Bank  of  the  United  States  was 
a  necessary  fiscal  agent  of  the  government,  it  was 

lo  constitutional,  and  if  not,  that  it  was  unconstitu- 
tional, and  also,  that  whether  or  not  it  was  neces- 
sary for  that  purpose,  was  a  political  question  for 
Congress,  and  not  a  judicial  one  for  the  courts  to 
determine.  Hence  the  court  would  not  determine  the 

15  bank  unconstitutional.  Jackson  respected  the  de- 
cision, obeyed  the  law,  executed  it,  and  carried  it 
into  effect  during  its  existence ;  but  after  the  charter 
of  the  bank  expired,  and  a  proposition  was  made 
to  create  a  new  bank,  General  Jackson  said,  "  It 

20  is  unnecessary  and  improper,  and  therefore  I  am 
against  it  on  constitutional  grounds  as  well  as  those 
of  expediency."  Is  Congress  bound  to  pass  every 
Act  that  is  constitutional?  Why,  there  are  a  thou- 
sand things  that  are  constitutional,  but  yet  are  in- 

25  expedient  and  unnecessary,  and  you  surely  would 
not  vote  for  them  merely  because  you  had  the  right 
to?  And  because  General  Jackson  would  not  do  a 
thing  which  he  had  a  right  to  do,  but  did  not  deem 
expedient  or  proper,  Mr.  Lincoln  is  going  to  justify 

30  himself  in  doing  that  which  he  has  no  right  to  do. 
I  ask  him  whether  he  is  not  bound  to  respect  and 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  REJOINDER  141 

obey  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  as  well 
as  I?  The  Constitution  has  created  that  court  to 
decide  all  constitutional  questions  in  the  last  resort ; 
and  when  such  decisions  have  been  made,  they  be- 
come the  law  of  the  land,  and  you,  and  he,  and  my-  5 
self,  and  every  other  good  citizen,  are  bound  by 
them.  Yet  he  argues  that  I  am  bound  by  their 
decisions,  and  he  is  not.  He  savs  that  their  de- 
cisions  are  binding  on  Democrats,  but  not  on  Re- 
publicans. Are  not  Republicans  bound  by  the  laws  10 
of  the  land  as  well  as  Democrats?  And  when  the 
court  has  fixed  the  construction  of  the  Consti- 
tution on  the  validity  of  a  given  law,  is  not  their 
decision  binding  upon  Republicans  as  well  as  upon 
Democrats?  Is  it  possible  that  you  Republicans  15 
have  the  right  to  raise  your  mobs  and  oppose  the 
laws  of  the  land  and  the  constituted  authorities,  and 
yet  hold  us  Democrats  bound  to  obey  them?  ^ly 
time  is  within  half  a  minute  of  expiring,  and  all  I 
liave  to  say  is,  that  I  stand  by  the  laws  of  the  land.  20 
I  stand  by  the  Constitution  as  our  fathers  made  it, 
by  the  laws  as  they  are  enacted,  and  by  the  de- 
cisions of  the  court  upon  all  points  within  their 
jurisdiction  as  they  are  pronounced  by  the  highest 
tribunal  on  earth ;  and  any  man  who  resists  these  25 
must  resort  to  mob  law  and  violence  to  overturn  the 
government  of  laws. 


tibc  Seventb  anD  Xast  5olnt  Debate,  at  ?lltoi\ 

[October  15,  1858] 
SENATOR   DOUGLAS'S    SPEECH 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :    It  is  now  nearly  four 

5  months  since  the  canvass  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
myself  commenced.  On  the  i6th  of  June  the  Re- 
publican Convention  assembled  at  Springfield  and 
nominated  Mr.  Lincoln  as  tlieir  candidate  for  the 
United   States   Senate,   and   he,   on   that   occasion, 

10  delivered  a  speech  in  which  he  laid  down  what  he 
understood  to  be  the  Republican  creed  and  the  plat- 
form on  which  he  proposed  to  stand  during  the 
contest.  The  principal  points  in  that  speech  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  were:     First,  that  this  government 

15  could  not  endure  permanently  divided  into  Free  and 
Slave  States,  as  our  fathers  made  it ;  that  they  must 
all  become  free  or  all  become  slave ;  all  become 
one  thing,  or  all  become  the  other, — otherwise  this 
Union  could  not  continue  to  exist.     I  give  you  his 

20  opinions  almost  in  the  identical  language  he  used. 
His  second  proposition  was  a  crusade  against  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  because  of 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  urging  as  an  especial 
reason  for  his  opposition  to  that  decision  that  it  de- 

25  prived  the  negroes  of  the  rights  and  benefits  of  that 

142 


SENATOR   DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  143 

clause  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
which  p^uarantces  to  the  citizens  of  each  State  all 
the  rii^hts,  privik\c:es,  and  immunities  of  the  citi- 
zens of  the  several  States.  On  the  loth  of  July  I 
returned  home,  and  delivered  a  speech  to  the  people  5 
of  Chicago,  in  which  I  announced  it  to  be  my  pur- 
l)ose  to  appeal  to  the  people  of  Illinois  to  sustain 
the  course  I  had  pursued  in  Coni^ress.  In  that 
speech  I  joined  issue  w^ith  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the  points 
which  he  had  presented.  Thus  there  was  an  issue  10 
clear  and  distinct  made  up  between  us  on  these  two 
propositions  laid  down  in  the  speech  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln at  Springfield,  and  controverted  by  me  in  my 
reply  to  him  at  Chicago.  On  the  next  day,  the  nth 
of  July,  Mr.  Lincoln  replied  to  me  at  Chicago,  15 
explaining  at  some  length  and  reaffirming  the  posi- 
tions which  he  had  taken  in  his  Springfield  speech. 
In  that  Chicago  speech  he  even  went  further  than 
he  had  before,  and  uttered  sentiments  in  regard  to 
the  negro  being  on  an  equality  with  the  white  man.  20 
He  adopted  in  support  of  this  position  the  argu- 
ment which  Lovejoy  and  Codding  and  other  Aboli- 
tion lecturers  had  made  familiar  in  the  northern  and 
central  portions  of  the  State ;  to  wit,  that  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  having  declared  all  25 
men  free  and  equal,  by  divine  law,  also  that  negro 
equality  w^as  an  inalienable  right,  of  which  they 
could  not  be  deprived.  He  insisted,  in  that  speech, 
that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  included  the 
negro  in  the  clause  asserting  that  all  men  w^re  3° 
created  equal,  and  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  if 


144   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON    ■ 

one  man  was  allowed  to  take  the  position  that  it 
did  not  include  the  negro,  others  might  take  the 
position  that  it  did  not  include  other  men.  He  said 
that  all  these  distinctions  between  this  man  and 
5  that  man,  this  race  and  the  other  race,  must  be  dis- 
carded, and  we  must  all  stand  by  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  declaring  that  all  men  were  created 
equal. 

The  issue  thus  being  made  up  between  Mr.  Lin- 

lo  coin  and  myself  on  three  points,  we  went  before  the 
people  of  the  State.  During  the  following  seven 
weeks,  between  the  Chicago  speeches  and  our  first 
meeting  at  Ottawa,  he  and  I  addressed  large  as- 
semblages of  the  people  in  many    of    the    central 

15  counties.  In  my  speeches  I  confined  myself  closely 
to  those  three  positions  which  he  had  taken,  con- 
troverting his  proposition  that  this  Union  could  not 
exist  as  our  fathers  made  it,  divided  into  Free  and 
Slave   States,    controverting   his   proposition   of   a 

20  crusade  against  the  Supreme  Court  because  of  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  and  controverting  his  proposi- 
tion that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  included 
and  meant  the  negroes  as  well  as  the  white  men, 
when  it  declared  all  men  to  be  created  equal.     I 

25  supposed  at  that  time  that  these  propositions  con- 
stituted a  distinct  issue  between  us,  and  that  the 
opposite  positions  we  had  taken  upon  them  we 
would  be  willing  to  be  held  to  in  every  part  of  the 
State.    I  never  intended  to  waver  one  hair's  breadth 

30  from  that  issue  either  in  the  north  or  the  south  or 
wherever  I  should  address  the  people  of  Illinois. 


SENATOR   DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  145 

I  hold  that  when  the  time  arrives  that  I  cannot  pro- 
claim my  pohtical  creed  in  tlie  same  terms,  not 
only  in  the  northern,  but  in  the  southern  part  of 
Illinois,  not  only  in  the  Northern,  but  the  Southern 
States,  and  wherever  the  American  Hag  waves  over  5 
American  soil,  that  then  there  must  be  something 
wrong  in  that  creed ;  so  long  as  we  live  under  a 
common  Constitution,  so  long  as  we  live  in  a  con- 
federacy of  sovereign  and  equal  States,  joined  to- 
gether as  one  for  certain  purposes,  that  any  political  10 
creed  is  radically  wrong  which  cannot  be  pro- 
claimed in  every  State  and  every  section  of  that 
Union,  alike.  I  took  up  Mr.  Lincoln's  three  proposi- 
tions in  my  several  speeches,  analyzed  them,  and 
pointed  out  what  I  believed  to  be  the  radical  errors  15 
contained  in  them.  First,  in  regard  to  his  doctrine 
that  this  government  was  in  violation  of  the  law  of 
God,  which  says  that  a  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand,  I  repudiated  it  as  a  slander  upon  the 
immortal  framers  of  our  Constitution.  I  then  said,  20 
I  have  often  repeated,  and  now  again  assert,  that 
in  my  opinion  our  government  can  endure  forever, 
divided  into  Free  and  Slave  States  as  our  fathers 
made  it, — each  State  having  the  right  to  prohibit, 
abolish,  or  sustain  slaver^',  just  as  it  pleases.  This  25 
government  was  made  upon  the  great  basis  of  the 
sovereignty  of  the  States,  the  right  of  each  State  to 
regulate  its  own  domestic  institutions  to  suit  itself; 
and  that  right  was  conferred  with  the  understand- 
ing and  expectation  that  inasmuch  as  each  locality  30 
had  separate  interests,  each  locality  must  have  dif- 


146  THE  SEVENTH  JOIXT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

ferent  and  distinct  local  and  domestic  institutions, 
corresponding  to  its  wants  and  interests.  Our 
fathers  knew  when  they  made  the  government  that 
the  laws  and  institutions  which  were  well  adapted 

5  to  the  Green  ^Mountains  of  \^ermont  were  unsuited 
to  the  rice  plantations  of  South  Carolina,  They 
knew  then,  as  well  as  we  know  now,  that  the  laws 
and  institutions  which  would  be  well  adapted  to  the 
beautiful  prairies  of  Illinois  would  not  be  suited  to 

lo  the  mininsf  res^ions  of  California.  Thev  knew  that 
in  a  Republic  as  broad  as  this,  having  such  a  variety 
of  soil,  climate,  and  interest,  there  must  necessarily 
be  a  corresponding  variety  of  local  laws, — the 
policy  and  institutions  of  each  State  adapted  to  its 

15  condition  and  wants.  For  this  reason  this  Union 
was  established  on  the  right  of  each  State  to  do  as 
it  pleased  on  the  question  of  slaver}^  and  every 
other  question;  and  the  various  States  were  not 
allowed  to  com.plain  of,  much  less  interfere  with, 

20  the  policy  of  their  neighbors. 

Suppose  the  doctrine  advocated  by  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  the  Abolitionists  of  this  day  had  prevailed 
when  the  Constitution  was  made,  what  would  have 
been  the  result?     Imagine  for  a  moment  that  ^Ir. 

25  Lincoln  had  been  a  member  of  the  Convention  that 
framed  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
that  when  its  members  were  about  to  sign  that  won- 
derful document,  he  had  arisen  in  that  Convention 
as  he  did  at  Springfield  this  summer,  and,  address- 

30  ing  himself  to  the  President,  had  said,  "  A  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand;    this    govern- 


SENATOR   DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  147 

nicnt,  divided  into  Free  and  Slave  States  cannot  en- 
dure, they  must  all  be  free  or  all  be  slave ;  they 
must  all  be  one  thing-,  or  all  the  other, — otherwise, 
it  is  a  violation  of  the  law  of  God,  and  cannot  con- 
tinue to  exist ;  " — suppose  Mr.  Lincoln  had  con-  5 
vinced  that  body  of  sages  that  that  doctrine  w^as 
sound,  what  would  have  been  the  result?  Remem- 
ber that  the  Union  was  then  composed  of  thirteen 
States,  twelve  of  which  were  slaveholding,  and  one 
free.  Do  vou  think  that  the  one  Free  State  would  10 
have  outvoted  the  twelve  slaveholding  States,  and 
thus  have  secured  the  abolition  of  slavery?  On  the 
other  hand,  would  not  the  twelve  slaveholding 
States  have  outvoted  the  one  free  State,  and  thus 
have  fastened  slavery,  by  a  constitutional  provision.  15 
on  every  foot  of  the  American  Republic  forever? 
You  see  that  if  this  Abolition  doctrine  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  prevailed  wdien  the  government  was  made, 
it  would  have  established  slavery  as  a  permanent 
institution  in  all  the  States,  whether  they  wanted  it  20 
or  not ;  and  the  question  for  us  to  determine  in  Illi- 
nois now,  as  one  of  the  Free  States,  is  whether  or 
not  we  are  willing,  having  become  the  majority 
section,  to  enforce  a  doctrine  on  the  minority  which 
we  would  have  resisted  with  our  heart's  blood  had  ^5 
it  been  attempted  on  us  when  we  were  in  a  minority. 
How  has  the  South  lost  her  power  as  the  majority 
section  in  this  Union,  and  how  have  the  Free 
States  gained  it,  except  under  the  operation  of  that 
principle  which  declares  the  right  of  the  people  of  30 
each  State  and  each  Territory  to  form  and  regulate 


148  THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way?  It 
was  under  that  principle  that  slavery  was  abolished 
in  New  Hampshire,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut, 
New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania;  it  was 
5  under  that  principle  that  one-half  of  the  slavehold- 
ing  States  became  free:  it  was  under  that  prin- 
ciple that  the  number  of  Free  States  increased  until, 
from  being  one  out  of  twelve  States,  we  have 
grown  to  be  the  majority  of  States  of  the  whole 

lo  Union,  with  the  power  to  control  the  House  of 
Representatives  and  Senate,  and  the  power,  conse- 
quently, to  elect  a  President  by  Northern  votes, 
without  the  aid  of  a  Southern  State.  Having  ob- 
tained this  power  under  the  operation  of  that  great 

15  principle,  are  you  now  prepared  to  abandon  the 
principle  and  declare  that  merely  because  we  have 
the  power  you  will  wage  a  w^ar  against  the  Southern 
States  and  their  institutions  until  you  force  them  to 
abolish  slavery  everywhere? 

20  After  having  pressed  these  arguments  home  on 
Mr.  Lincoln  for  seven  weeks,  publishing  a  number 
of  my  speeches,  we  met  at  Ottawa  in  joint  discus- 
sion, and  he  then  began  to  crawfish  a  little,  and 
let  himself  down.    I  there  propounded  certain  ques- 

25  tions  to  him.  Amongst  others,  I  asked  him  whether 
he  would  vote  for  the  admission  of  any  more  Slave 
States,  in  the  event  the  people  wanted  them.  He 
would  not  answer.  I  then  told  him  that  if  he  did 
not  answer  the  question  there,  I  would  renew  it  at 

30  Freeport,  and  would  then  trot  him  down  into  Egypt, 
and  again  put  it  to  him.    Well,  at  Freeport,  know- 


SENATOR   DOUGLAS'S   SPEECH  149 

ing  that  the  next  joint  discussion  took  place  in 
Eg}'pt,  and  being  in  dread  of  it,  he  did  answer  my 
question  in  regard  to  no  more  Slave  States  in  a 
mode  which  he  hoped  would  be  satisfactory'  to  me, 
and  accomplish  the  object  he  had  in  view.  I  will  5 
show  you  what  his  answer  was.  After  saying  that 
he  was  not  pledged  to  the  Republican  doctrine  of 
**  no  more  Slave  States,"  he  declared : 

"  I   state   to   you   freely,   frankly,   that   I   should  be 
exceedingly  sorry  to  ever  be  put   in  the   position   of   ^*^ 
having  to  pass  upon  that  question.    I  should  be  exceed- 
ingly glad  to  know  that  there  never  would  be  another 
Slave  State  admitted  into  this  Union." 

Here  permit  me  to  remark,  that  I  do  not  think 
the  people  will  ever  force  him  into  a  position  against   ^5 
his  will.    He  went  on  to  say : 

"  But  I  must  add,  in  regard  to  this,  that  if  slavery 
shall  be  kept  out  of  the  Territorj-  during  the  Territorial 
existence  of  any  one  given  Territory,  and  then  the 
people  should,  having  a  fair  chance  and  a  clear  field,  20 
when  they  come  to  adopt  a  constitution,  if  they  should 
do  the  extraordinary'  thing  of  adopting  a  slave  consti- 
tution uninfluenced  by  the  actual  presence  of  the 
institution  among  them,  I  see  no  alternative,  if  we  own 
the  country,  but  we  must  admit  it  into  the  Union."         25 

That  answer  Mr.  Lincoln  supposed  would  satisfy 
the  old  line  Whigs,  composed  of  Kentuckians  and 
Virginians,  down  in  the  southern  part  of  the  State. 


150  THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE; AT  ALTON 

Now,  what  does  it  amount  to?  I  desired  to  know 
whether  he  would  vote  to  allow  Kansas  to  come  into 
the  Union  with  slavety  or  not,  as  her  people  de- 
sired. He  would  not  answer,  but  in  a  roundabout 
5  way  said  that  if  slavery  should  be  kept  out  of  a 
Territory  during  the  whole  of  its  Territorial  exist- 
ence, and  then  the  people,  when  they  adopted  a  State 
Constitution,  asked  admission  as  a  Slave  State,  he 
supposed  he  would  have  to  let  the  State  come  in. 

lo  The  case  I  put  to  him  was  an  entirely  different  one. 
I  desired  to  know  whether  he  would  vote  to  admit 
a  State  if  Congress  had  not  prohibited  slavery  in  it 
during  its  Territorial  existence,  as  Congress  never 
pretended  to  do  under  Clay's  Compromise  measures 

15  of  1850.  He  would  not  answer,  and  I  have  not 
yet  been  able  to  get  an  answer  from  him.  I  have 
asked  him  whether  he  would  vote  to  admit  Ne- 
braska, if  her  people  asked  to  come  in  as  a  State  with 
a  constitution  recognizing  slavery,  and  he  refused 

20  to  answer.  I  have  put  the  question  to  him  with 
reference  to  New  Mexico,  and  he  has  not  uttered 
a  word  in  answer.  I  have  enumerated  the  Terri- 
tories, one  after  another,  putting  the  same  question 
to  him  with  reference  to  each,  and  he  has  not  said, 

25  and  will  not  say,  whether,  if  elected  to  Congress, 
he  will  vote  to  admit  any  Territory  now  in  existence 
with  such  a  constitution  as  her  people  may  adopt. 
He  invents  a  case  which  does  not  exist,  and  cannot 
exist  under  this  government,  and  answers  it;  but 

30  he  will  not  answer  the  question  I  put  to  him  in 
connection  with  any  of    the    Territories    now    in 


SENATOR   DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  151 

existence.  The  contract  we  entered  into  with  Texas 
when  she  entered  the  Union  obHges  us  to  allow 
four  States  to  be  formed  out  of  the  old  State,  and 
admitted  with  or  without  slavery,  as  the  respective 
inhabitants  of  each  may  determine.  I  have  asked  5 
Mr.  Lincoln  three  times  in  our  joint  discussions 
whether  he  would  vote  to  redeem  that  pled<:^e,  and 
he  has  never  yet  answered.  He  is  as  silent  as  the 
grave  on  the  subject.  He  would  rather  answer  as 
to  a  state  of  the  case  which  will  never  arise  than  10 
commit  himself  by  telling  w'hat  he  would  do  in  a 
case  which  would  come  up  for  his  action  soon  after 
his  election  to  Congress.  Why  can  he  not  say 
whether  he  is  willing  to  allow  the  people  of  each 
State  to  have  slavery  or  not  as  they  please,  and  to  15 
come  into  the  Union,  when  they  have  the  requisite 
population,  as  a  Slave  or  a  Free  State  as  they  de- 
cide? I  have  no  trouble  in  answering  the  question. 
I  have  said  everywhere,  and  now  repeat  it  to  you, 
that  if  the  people  of  Kansas  want  a  Slave  State  they  20 
have  a  right,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  to  form  such  a  State,  and  I  will  let  them 
come  into  the  Union  with*  slavery  or  without,  as 
they  determine.  If  the  people  of  any  other  Terri- 
tory  desire  slavery,  let  them  have  it.  H  they  do  25 
not  want  it,  let  them  prohibit  it.  It  is  their  busir 
ness,  not  mine.  It  is  none  of  our  business  in 
Illinois  whether  Kansas  is  a  Free  State  or  a  Slave 
State.  It  is  none  of  your  business  in  Missouri 
whether  Kansas  shall  adoj)t  slavery  or  reject  it.  30 
It  is  the  business  of  her  people,  and  none  of  yours. 


152  THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

The  people  of  Kansas  have  as  much  right  to  de- 
cide that  question  for  themselves  as  you  have  in 
Missouri  to  decide  it  for  yourselves,  or  we  in  Illinois 
to  decide  it  for  ourselves. 
5  And  here  I  may  repeat  what  I  have  said  in  every 
speech  I  have  made  in  Illinois,  that  I  fought  the 
Lecompton  Constitution  to  its  death,  not  because 
of  the  slavery  clause  in  it,  but  because  it  was  not 
the  act  and  deed  of  the  people  of  Kansas.     I  said 

lo  then  in  Congress,  and  I  say  now,  that  if  the  people 
of  Kansas  want  a  Slave  State,  they  have  a  right  to 
have  it.  If  they  wanted  the  Lecompton  Constitu- 
tion, they  had  a  right  to  have  it.  I  was  opposed  to 
that  constitution  because  I  did  not  believe  that  it 

15  was  the  act  and  deed  of  the  people,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  the  act  of  a  small,  pitiful  minority  acting 
in  the  name  of  the  majority.  When  at  last  it  was 
determined  to  send  that  constitution  back  to  the 
people,  and,  accordingly,  in  August  last,  the  ques- 

20  tion  of  admission  under  it  was  submitted  to  a  popu- 
lar vote,  the  citizens  rejected  it  by  nearly  ten  to 
one,  thus  showing  conclusively  that  I  was  right 
when  I  said  that  the  Lecompton  Constitution  was 
not  the  act  and  deed  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  and 

25  did  not  embody  their  will. 

I  hold  that  there  is  no  power  on  earth,  under  our 
system  of  government,  which  has  the  right  to  force 
a  constitution  upon  an  unwilling  people.  Suppose 
that  there  had  been  a  majority  of  ten  to  one  in  favor 

30  of  slavery  in  Kansas,  and  suppose  there  had  been  an 
Abolition  President  and  an  Abolition  Administra- 


SENATOR   DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  153 

tion,  and  by  some  means  the  Abolitionists  succeeded 
in  forcing-  an  Abolition  Constitution  upon  those 
slaveholding  people,  would  the  people  of  the  South 
have  submitted  to  that  act  for  an  instant?  Well,  if 
you  of  the  South  would  not  have  submitted  to  it  a  5 
day,  how  can  you,  as  fair,  honorable,  and  honest 
men,  insist  on  putting  a  slave  constitution  on  a  peo- 
ple who  desire  a  Free  State  ?  Your  safety  and  ours 
depend  upon  both  of  us  acting  in  good  faith,  and 
living  up  to  that  great  principle  which  asserts  the  10 
right  of  every  people  to  form  and  regulate  their 
domestic  institutions  to  suit  themselves,  subject  only 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

Most  of  the  men  who  denounced  my  course  on 
the  Lecompton  question  objected  to  it,  not  because    15 
I  was  not  right,  but  because  they  thought  it  expedi- 
ent at  that  time,  for  the  sake  of  keeping-  the  party 
together,  to  do  wrong.     I  never  knew  the  Demo- 
cratic party  to  violate  any  one  of  its  principles,  out 
of  policy  or  expediency,  that  it  did  not  pay  the  debt   20 
with  sorrow.     There  is  no  safety  or  success  for  our 
party  unless  we  always  do  right,  and  trust  the  con- 
sequences to  God  and  the  people.     I  chose  not  to 
depart  from  principle  for  the  sake  of  expediency 
on  the  Lecompton  question,  and  I  never  intend  to    25 
do  it  on  that  or  any  other  question. 

But  I  am  told  that  I  would  have  been  all  right  if 
I   had   only    voted    for   the    English   bill    after  the 
Lecompton  was  killed.     You  know  a  general  par- 
don was  granted  to  all  political  offenders  on  the    3^ 
Lecompton  question,  provided  they  would  only  vote 


154  THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

for  the  English  bill.  I  did  not  accept  the  benefits 
of  that  pardon  for  the  reason  that  I  had  been  right 
in  the  course  I  had  pursued,  and  hence  did  not 
require  any  forgiveness.  Let  us  see  how  the  result 
5  has  been  worked  out.  English  brought  in  his  bill 
referring  the  Lecompton  Constitution  back  to  the 
people,  with  the  provision  that  if  it  was  rejected, 
Kansas  should  be  kept  out  of  the  Union  until  she 
had  the  full  ratio  of  population  required  for  mem- 

lo  ber  of  Congress, — thus  in  effect  declaring  that  if  the 
people  of  Kansas  would  only  consent  to  come  into 
the  Union  under  the  Lecompton  Constitution,  and 
have  a  Slave  State  when  they  did  not  want  it,  they 
should  be  admitted  with  a  population  of  35,000; 

15  but  that  if  they  were  so  obstinate  as  to  insist  upon 
having  just  such  a  constitution  as  they  thought  best, 
and  to  desire  admission  as  a  free  State,  then  they 
should  be  kept  out  until  they  had  93,420  inhabitants. 
I  then  said,  and  I  now  repeat  to  you,  that  whenever 

20  Kansas  has  people  enough  for  a  Slave  State  she  has 
people  enough  for  a  Free  State.  I  was,  and  am 
willing  to  adopt  the  rule  that  no  State  shall  ever 
come  into  the  Union  until  she  has  the  full  ratio  of 
population  for  a  member  of  Congress,  provided  that 

25  rule  is  made  uniform.  I  made  that  proposition  in 
the  Senate  last  winter,  but  a  majority  of  the  Sena- 
tors would  not  agree  to  it ;  and  I  then  said  to  them, 
If  you  will  not  adopt  the  general  rule,  I  will  not  con- 
sent to  make  an  exception  of  Kansas. 

^°  I  hold  that  it  is  a  violation  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  this  government  to  throw  the  weight 


SENATOR  DOUGLAS'S   SPEECH  155 

of  Federal  power  into  the  scale,  either  in  favor  of 
the  Free  or  the  Slave  States.  Equality  among  all 
the  States  of  this  Union  is  a  fundamental  principle 
in  our  political  system.  We  have  no  more  ri,u:ht  to 
throw  the  weight  of  the  Federal  Government  into  5 
the  scale  in  favor  of  the  slaveholding  than  the  Free 
States,  and  last  of  all  should  our  friends  in  the 
South  consent  for  a  moment  that  Congress  should 
withhold  its  powers  either  way  when  they  know  that 
there  is  a  majority  against  them  in  both  Houses  10 
of  Congress. 

Fellow-citizens,  how^  have  the  supporters  of  the 
English  bill  stood  up  to  their  pledges  not  to  admit 
Kansas  until   she  obtained  a  population  of  93,420 
in  the  event  she  rejected  the  Lecompton  Constitu-    15 
tion?     How?     The    new'spapers    inform    us    that 
English  himself,  whilst  conducting  his  canvass  for 
re-election,  and  in  order  to  secure  it,  pledged  him- 
self to  his  constituents  that  if  returned  he  would 
disregard  his  own  bill  and  vote  to  admit  Kansas  into   20 
the  Union  with  such  population  as  she  might  have 
when  she  made  application.     We  are  informed  that 
every  Democratic  candidate  for  Congress  in  all  the 
States  where  elections  have  recently  been  held  w^as 
pledged  against  the  English  bill,  with  perhaps  one   25 
or  two  exceptions.     Now,  if  I  had  only  done  as 
these  anti-Lecompton  men  who  voted  for  the  Eng- 
lish bill  in  Congress,  pledging  themselves  to  refuse 
to  admit  Kansas  if  she  refused  to  become  a  Slave 
State  until  she  had  a  population  of  93,420,  and  then  30 
returned  to  their  people,  forfeited  their  pledge,  and 


156  THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

made  a  new  pledge  to  admit  Kansas  at  any  time  she 
applied,  without  regard  to  population,  I  would  have 
had  no  trouble.  You  saw  the  whole  power  and 
patronage  of  the  Federal  Government  wielded  in 

5  Indiana,  Ohio,  and  Pennsylvania  to  re-elect  anti- 
Lecompton  men  to  Congress  who  voted  against 
Lecompton,  then  voted  for  the  English  bill,  and  then 
denounced  the  English  bill,  and  pledged  themselves 
to  their  people  to  disregard  it.    My  sin  consists  in 

lo  not  having  given  a  pledge,  and  then  in  not  having 
afterward  forfeited  it.  For  that  reason,  in  this 
State,  every  postmaster,  every  route  agent,  every 
collector  of  the  ports,  and  every  Federal  office- 
holder forfeits  his  head  the  moment  he  expresses  a 

15  preference  for  the  Democratic  candidates  against 
Lincoln  and  his  Abolition  associates.  A  Demo- 
cratic Administration  which  we  helped  to  bring  into 
power  deems  it  consistent  with  its  fidelity  to  prin- 
ciple and  its  regard  to  duty  to  wield  its  power  in 

20  this  State  in  behalf  of  the  Republican  Abolition 
candidates  in  every  county  and  every  Congressional 
District  against  the  Democratic  party.  All  I  have 
to  say  in  reference  to  the  matter  is,  that  if  that 
Administration  have  not  regard  enough  for  prin- 

25  ciple,  if  they  are  not  sufficiently  attached  to  the 
creed  of  the  Democratic  party,  to  bury  forever  their 
personal  hostilities  in  order  to  succeed  in  carrying 
out  our  glorious  principles,  I  have.  I  have  no  per- 
sonal difficulty  with  Mr.  Buchanan  or  his  Cabinet. 

30  He  chose  to  make  certain  recommendations  to  Con- 
gress, as  he  had  a  right  to  do,  on  the  Lecompton 


SENATOR  DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  157 

question.  I  could  not  vote  in  favor  of  them.  I 
had  as  much  rig^ht  to  judge  for  myself  how  I  should 
vote  as  he  had  how  he  should  recommend.  lie 
undertook  to  say  to  me,  "  If  you  do  not  vote  as  I 
tell  you,  I  will  take  off  the  heads  of  your  friends."  5 
I  replied  to  him,  "  You  did  not  elect  me.  I  repre- 
sent Illinois,  and  I  am  accountable  to  Illinois,  as  my 
constituency,  and  to  God ;  but  not  to  the  President 
or  to  any  other  power  on  earth." 

And  now  this  warfare  is  made  on  me  because  I   10 
would  not  surrender  my  convictions  of  duty,  because 
I  would  not  abandon  my  constituency,  and  receive 
the  orders  of  the  executive  authorities  as  to  how  I 
should  vote  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.     I 
hold  that  an  attempt  to  control  the  Senate  on  the  part   15 
of  the  Executive  is  subversive  of  the  principles  of 
our  Constitution.    The  Executive  department  is  inde- 
pendent of  the  Senate,  and  the  Senate  is  independ- 
ent of  the  President.     In  matters  of  legislation  the 
President  has  a  veto  on  the  action  of  the  Senate,   20 
and  in  appointments  and  treaties  the  Senate  has  a 
veto  on  the  President.    He  has  no  more  right  to  tell 
me  how  I  shall  vote  on  his  appointments  than  I  have 
to  tell  him  whether  he  shall  veto  or  approve  a  bill 
that  the  Senate  has  passed.     Whenever  you  recog-   25 
nize  the  right  of  the  Executive  to  say  to  a  Senator, 
"  Do   this,   or   I   will  take   off  the  heads   of  your 
friends,"  you  convert  this  government  from  a  repub- 
lic into  a  despotism.     Whenever  you  recognize  the 
right  of  a  President  to  say  to  a  member  of  Congress,   30 
"  \'ote  as  I  tell  you,  or  I  will  bring  a  power  to  bear 


158    THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

against  you  at  home  which  will  crush  you,"  you 
destroy  the  independence  of  the  representative  and 
convert  him  into  a  tool  of  Executive  power.  I 
resisted  this  invasion  of  the  constitutional  rights  of 
5  a  Senator,  and  I  intend  to  resist  it  as  long  as  I  have 
a  voice  to  speak  or  a  vote  to  give.  Yet  I\Ir. 
Buchanan  cannot  provoke  me  to  abandon  one  iota 
of  Democratic  principles  out  of  revenge  or  hostility 
to  his  course.     I  stand  by  the  platform  of  the  Dem- 

lo  ocratic  party,  and  by  its  organization,  and  support 
its  nominees.  If  there  are  any  who  choose  to  bolt, 
the  fact  only  shows  that  they  are  not  as  good  Dem- 
ocrats as  I  am. 

My  friends,  there  never  w^as  a  time  when  it  was 

15  as  important  for  the  Democratic  party,  for  all 
national  men,  to  rally  and  stand  together,  as  it  is 
to-day.  We  find  all  sectional  men  giving  up  past 
differences  and  continuing  the  one  question  of  slav- 
ery; and  when  we  find  sectional  men  thus  uniting 

20  we  should  unite  to  resist  them  and  their  treasonable 
designs.  Such  was  the  case  in  1850,  when  Clay 
left  the  quiet  and  peace  of  his  home,  and  again  en- 
tered upon  public  life  to  quell  agitation  and  restore 
peace  to  a  distracted  Union.     Then  we  Democrats, 

25  with  Cass  at  our  head,  welcomed  Henry  Clay, 
whom  the  w^hole  nation  regarded  as  having  been 
preserved  by  God  for  the  times.  He  became  our 
leader  in  that  great  fight,  and  we  rallied  around 
him   the   same   as   the   Whigs    rallied   around   old 

30  Hickory  in  1832  to  put  down  nullification.  Thus 
you  see  that  whilst  Whigs  and  Democrats  fought 


SENATOR  DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  150 

fearlessly  in  old  times  about  banks,  the  tariff,  dis- 
tribution, the  specie  circular,  and  the  sub-treasury, 
all  united  as  a  band  of  brothers  when  the  peace, 
harmony,  or  intejii^rity  of  the  Union  was  imperiled. 
It  was  so  in  1850,  when  Abolitionism  had  even  so  5 
far  divided  this  country,  North  and  South,  as  to 
endanger  the  peace  of  the  Union  ;  Whigs  and  Demo- 
crats united  in  establishing  the  Compromise  Meas- 
ures of  that  year,  and  restoring  tranquillity  and  good 
feeling.  10 

These  measures  passed  on  the  joint  action  of 
the  two  parties.  They  rested  on  the  great  prin- 
ciple that  the  people  of  each  State  and  each  Terri- 
tory should  be  left  perfectly  free  to  form  and 
regulate  their  domestic  institutions  to  suit  them-  15 
selves.  You  Whigs  and  we  Democrats  justified 
them  in  that  principle.  In  1854,  when  it  became 
necessary  to  organize  the  Territories  of  Kansas  and 
Nebraska,  I  brought  forward  the  bill  on  the  same 
principle.  In  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  you  find  it  20 
declared  to  be  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  the 
Act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  State  or  Terri- 
tory, nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the 
people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate 
their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way.  I  25 
stand  on  that  same  platform  in  1858  that  I  did  in 
1850,  1854,  and  1856.  The  Washington  "  Union," 
pretending  to  be  the  organ  of  the  Adminstration, 
in  the  number  of  the  5th  of  this  month,  devotes 
three  columns  and  a  half  to  establish  these  ])ropo-  30 
sitions :  first,  that  Douglas,  in  his  Freeport  speech, 


i6o   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

held  the  same  doctrine  that  he  did  in  his  Nebraska 
bill  in  1854;  second,  that  in  1854  Douglas  justified 
the  Nebraska  bill  upon  the  ground  that  it  was  based 
upon    the    same    principle    as    Clay's    Compromise 

5  :\Ieasures  of  1850.  The  ''Union"  thus  proved  that 
Douglas  was  the  same  in  1858  that  he  was  in  1856, 
1854,  and  1850,  and  consequently  argued  that  he 
w-as  never  a  Democrat.  Is  it  not  funny  that  I  was 
never  a  Democrat?     There  is  no  pretence  that  I 

10  have  changed  a  hair's  breadth.  The  "  Union " 
proves  by  my  speeches  that  I  explained  the  Com- 
promise Measures  of  1850  just  as  I  do  now,  and 
that  I  explained  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  in 
1854  just  as  I  did  in  my  Freeport  speech,  and  yet 

15  says  that  I  am  not  a  Democrat,  and  cannot  be 
trusted,  because  I  have  not  changed  during  the 
whole  of  that  time.  It  has  occurred  to  me  that  in 
1854  the  author  of  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill 
was  considered  a  pretty  good  Democrat.     It  has 

20  occurred  to  me  that  in  1856,  when  I  was  exerting 
every  nerve  and  every  energy  for  James  Buchanan, 
standing  on  the  same  platform  then  that  I  do  now, 
that  I  was  a  pretty  good  Democrat.  They  now  tell 
me  that  I  am  not  a  Democrat,  because  I  assert  that 

25  the  people  of  a  Territory,  as  well  as  those  of  a  State, 
have  the  risfht  to  decide  for  themselves  whether 
slavery  can  or  cannot  exist  in  such  Territory.  Let 
me  read  what  James  Buchanan  said  on  that  point 
when  he  accepted  the  Democratic  nomination  for 

30  the  Presidency  in  1856.  In  his  letter  of  acceptance, 
he  used  the  following  language: 


SENATOR  DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  i6i 

"  The  recent  legislation  of  Congress  respecting  do- 
mestic slavery,  derived  as  it  has  been  from  the  original 
and  pure  fountain  of  legitimate  political  power,  the  will 
of  the  majority,  promises  ere  long  to  allay  the  dangerous 
excitement.  This  legislation  is  founded  upon  principles  5 
as  ancient  as  free  government  itself,  and,  in  accordance 
with  them,  has  simply  declared  that  the  people  of  a 
Territory,  like  those  of  a  State,  shall  decide  for  them- 
selves whether  slavery  shall  or  shall  not  exist  within 
their  limits."  ^o 

Dr.  Hope  will  there  find  my  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion he  propounded  to  me  before  I  commenced 
speaking^.  Of  course,  no  man  will  consider  it  an 
answer  who  is  outside  of  the  Democratic  organiza- 
tion, bolts  Democratic  nominations,  and  indirectly  15 
aids  to  put  Abolitionists  into  power  over  Democrats, 
liut  whether  Dr.  Hope  considers  it  an  answer  or 
not,  every  fair-minded  man  will  see  that  James 
Buchanan  has  answered  the  question,  and  has  as- 
serted that  the  people  of  a  Territory,  like  those  of  20 
a  State,  shall  decide  for  themselves  w^hether  slavery 
shall  or  shall  not  exist  within  their  limits.  I  an- 
swer specifically  if  you  want  a  further  answ'er,  and 
say  that  while  under  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  as  recorded  in  the  opinion  of  Chief  Justice  25 
Taney,  slaves  are  property  like  all  other  property, 
and  can  be  carried  into  any  Territory  of  the  United 
States  the  same  as  any  other  description  of  prop- 
erty, yet  when  you  get  them  there  they  are  subject 
to  the  local  law  of  the  Territory  just  like  all  other  30 
property.    You  will  find  in  a  recent  speech  delivered 


l62   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

by  that  able  and  eloquent  statesman,  Hon.  Jefferson 
Davis,  at  Bangor,  Maine,  that  he  took  the  same 
view  of  this  subject  that  I  did  in  my  Freeport 
speech.     He  there  said: 

5  "  If  the  inhabitants  of  any  Territory  should  refuse 
to  enact  such  laws  and  police  regulations  as  would 
give  security  to  their  property  or  to  his,  it  would  be 
rendered  more  or  less  valueless  in  proportion  to  the 
difficulties  of  holding  it  without  such  protection.     In 

lo  the  case  of  property  in  the  labor  of  man,  or  what  is 
usually  called  slave  property,  the  insecurity  would  be 
so  great  that  the  owner  could  not  ordinarily  retain  it. 
Therefore,  though  the  right  would  remain,  the  remedy 
being  withheld,  it  would  follow  that  the  owner  would 

15  be  practically  debarred,  by  the  circumstances  of  the  case, 
from  taking  slave  property  into  a  Territory  where  the 
sense  of  the  inhabitants  was  opposed  to  its  introduc- 
tion. So  much  for  the  oft-repeated  fallacy  of  forcing 
slavery  upon  any  community." 

20  You  will  also  find  that  the  distinguished  Speaker 
of  the  present  House  of  Representatives,  Hon.  Jas. 
L.  Orr,  construed  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  in 
this  same  way  in  1856,  and  also  that  great  intellect 
of  the  South,  Alex.  H.  Stephens,  put  the  same  con- 

25  struction  upon  it  in  Congress  that  I  did  in  my  Free- 
port  speech.  The  whole  South  are  rallying  to  the 
support  of  the  doctrine  that  if  the  people  of  a  Ter- 
ritory want  slavery,  they  have  a  right  to  have  it, 
and  if  they  do  not  want  it,  that  no  power  on  earth 

30  can  force  it  upon  them.  I  hold  that  there  is  no 
principle  on  earth  more  sacred  to  all  the  friends  of 


SEXATOR  DOUGLAS'S  SPERCH  163 

freedom  than  that  which  says  that  no  institution, 
no  law,  no  constitution,  should  be  forced  on  an  un- 
willing:^ people  contrary  to  their  wishes;  and  I  assert 
that  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska  bill  contains  that 
principle.  It  is  the  ^reat  principle  contained  in  that  5 
bill.  It  is  the  ])rinciple  on  which  James  lUichanan 
was  made  President.  Without  that  princii)le,  he 
never  would  have  been  made  President  of  the  United 
States.  I  will  never  violate  or  abandon  that  doc- 
trine, if  I  have  to  stand  alone.  I  have  resisted  the  10 
blandishments  and  threats  of  power  on  the  one  side, 
and  seduction  on  the  other,  and  have  stood  im- 
movably for  that  principle,  fii^htinj^  for  it  when 
assailed  by  Northern  mobs,  or  threatened  by  South- 
ern hostility.  I  have  defended  it  against  the  North  15 
and  the  South,  and  I  will  defend  it  against  whoever 
assails  it,  and  I  will  follow  it  wherever  its  logical 
conclusions  lead  me.  I  say  to  you  that  there  is  but 
one  hope,  one  safety  for  this  country,  and  that  is 
to  stand  immovably  by  that  principle  which  de-  20 
Clares  the  right  of  each  State  and  each  Territory 
to  decide  these  questions  for  themselves.  This  gov- 
ernment was  founded  on  that  principle,  and  must 
be  administered  in  the  same  sense  in  which  it  was 
founded.  25 

But  the  Abolition  party  really  thinks  that  under 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  the  negro  is  equal 
to  the  white  man,  and  that  negro  equality  is  an  in- 
alienable right  conferred  by  the  Almighty,  and 
hence  that  all  human  laws  in  violation  of  it  are  null  30 
and  void.     With  such  men  it  is  no  use  for  me  to 


i64   THE  SEVEXTH  JOIXT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

• 
argue.     I  hold  that  the  signers  of  the  Declaration 

of  Independence  had  no  reference  to  negroes  at  all 

when  they  declared  all  men  to  be  created  equal. 

They  did  not  mean  negro,  nor  the  savage  Indians, 

5  nor  the  Feejee  Islanders,  nor  any  other  barbarous 

race.     They  were  speaking  of  white  men.     They 

alluded  to  men  of  European  birth  and  European 

descent, — to  white  men,  and  to  none  others, — when 

they  declared  that  doctrine,     I  hold  that  this  gov- 

lo  emment  was  established  on  the  white  basis.  It  was 
established  by  white  men  for  the  benefit  of  white 
men  and  their  posterity  forever,  and  should  be  ad- 
ministered by  white  men,  and  none  others.  But  it 
does  not  follow,  by  any  means,  that  merely  because 

15  the  negro  is  not  a  citizen,  and  merely  because  he  is 
not  our  equal,  that,  therefore,  he  should  be  a  slave. 
On  the  contrary,  it  does  follow  that  we  ought  to 
extend  to  the  negro  race,  and  to  all  other  depend- 
ent races,  all  the  rights,  all  the  privileges,  and  all 

20  the  immunities  which  they  can  exercise  consistently 
with  the  safety  of  society.  Humanity  requires  that 
we  should  give  them  all  these  privileges ;  Chris- 
tianity commands  that  we  should  extend  those  priv- 
ileges to  them.     The   question  then   arises.   What 

25  are  those  privileges,  and  what  is  the  nature  and 
extent  of  them  ?  My  answer  is,  that  that  is  a  ques- 
tion which  each  State  must  answer  for  itself.  We 
in  Illinois  have  decided  it  for  ourselves.  We  tried 
slavery,   kept  it  up   for  twelve  years,   and  finding 

30  that  it  was  not  profitable,  we  abolished  it  for  that 
reason,  and  became  a  Free  State.     We  adopted  in 


SEXATOR  DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH  165 

its  stead  the  policy  that  a  negro  in  this  State  shall 
not  be  a  slave  and  shall  not  be  a  citizen.  We  have 
a  right  to  adopt  that  policy.  For  my  part,  I  think 
it  is  a  wise  and  sound  policy  for  us.  You  in  Mis- 
souri must  judge  for  yourselves  whether  it  is  a  wise  5 
policy  for  you.  If  you  choose  to  follow  our 
example,  very  good ;  if  you  reject  it,  still  well, — it 
is  vour  business,  not  ours.  So  with  Kentuckv. 
Let  Kentucky  adopt  a  policy  to  suit  herself.  If 
we  do  not  like  it,  we  will  keep  away  from  it;  and  10 
if  she  does  not  like  ours,  let  her  stay  at  home, 
mind  her  own  business,  and  let  us  alone.  If  the 
people  of  all  the  States  will  act  on  that  great 
principle,  and  each  State  mind  its  own  business, 
attend  to  its  own  affairs,  take  care  of  its  15 
own  negroes,  and  not  meddle  with  its  neighbors, 
then  there  will  be  peace  between  the  North  and 
the  South,  the  East  and  the  West,  throughout  the 
whole  Union. 

Why  can  we  not  thus  have  peace?    Why  should  20 
we  thus  allow  a  sectional  party  to  agitate  this  coun- 
tr}-,  to  array  the  North  against  the  South,  and  con- 
vert us  into  enemies  instead  of  friends,  merely  that 
a  few  ambitious  men  may  ride  into  power  on  a  sec- 
tional hobby?    How  long  is  it  since  these  ambitious   25 
Northern  men  wished  for  a  sectional  organization? 
Did  any  one  of  them  dream  of  a  sectional  party  as 
long  as  the  North  was  the  weaker  section  and  the 
South  the  stronger?    Then  all  were  opposed  to  sec- 
tional parties :  but  the  moment  the  North  obtained   3° 
the  majority  in  the  House  and  Senate  by  the  admis- 


i66   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

sion  of  California,  and  could  elect  a  President  with- 
out the  aid  of  Southern  votes,  that  moment 
ambitious  Northern  men  formed  a  scheme  to  excite 
the  North  against  the  South,  and  make  the  people 
5  be  governed  in  their  votes  by  geographical  lines, 
thinking  that  the  North,  being  the  stronger  section, 
would  outvote  the  South,  and  consequently  they, 
the  leaders,  would  ride  into  office  on  a  sectional 
hobby.  I  am  told  that  my  hour  is  out.  It  was 
lo   very  short. 

MR.   LINCOLN'S   REPLY 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  I  have  been  somewhat, 
in  my  own  mind,  complimented  by  a  large  portion 
of  Judge  Douglas's  speech, — I  mean  that  portion 

15  which  he  devotes  to  the  controversy  between  him- 
self and  the  present  Administration.  This  is  the 
seventh  time  Judge  Douglas  and  myself  have  met 
in  these  joint  discussions,  and  he  has  been  gradually 
improving  in  regard  to  his  war  with  the  Adminis- 

20  tration.  At  Quincy,  day  before  yesterday,  he  was 
a  little  more  severe  upon  the  Administration  than 
I  had  heard  him  upon  any  occasion,  and  I  took  pains 
to  compliment  him  for  it.  I  then  told  him  to 
"  Give  it  to  them  with  all  the  power  he  had  " ;  and 

^5  as  some  of  them  were  present,  I  told  them  I  would 
be  very  much  obliged  if  they  would  give  it  to  him  in 
about  the  same  way.  I  take  it  he  has  now  vastly 
improved  upon  the  attack  he  made  then  upon  the 
Administration.    I  flatter  myself  he  has  really  taken 


MR.   LIXCOLX'S  REPLY  167 

my  advice  on  this  subject.  All  I  can  say  now  is 
to  recommend  to  him  and  to  them  what  I  then  com- 
mended.— to  prosecute  the  war  ag^ainst  one  another 
in  the  most  vigorous  manner.  I  say  to  them  again : 
*'  Go  it,  husband  ! — Go  it,  bear !  "  5 

There  is  one  other  thing  I  will  mention  before  I 
leave  this  branch  of  the  discussion, — although  I 
do  not  consider  it  much  of  my  business,  anyway. 
1  refer  to  that  part  of  the  Judge's  remarks  where 
he  undertakes  to  involve  Mr.  lUichanan  in  an  in-  10 
consistency.  He  reads  something  from  ]\Ir.  Bu- 
chanan, from  which  he  undertakes  to  involve  him 
in  an  inconsistency ;  and  he  gets  something  of  a 
cheer  for  having  done  so.  I  would  only  remind 
the  Judge  that  while  he  is  very  valiantly  fighting  15 
for  the  Nebraska  bill  and  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  it  has  been  but  a  little  while  since  he 
was  the  valiant  ach'ocatc  of  the  Missouri  Compro- 
mise. I  want  to  know  if  Buchanan  has  not  as  much 
right  to  be  inconsistent  as  Douglas  has?  Has  20 
Douglas  the  exclusive  right,  in  this  country,  of 
being  on  all  sides  of  all  questions?  Is  nobody  al- 
lowed that  high  privilege  but  himself?  Is  he  to 
have  an  entire  monopoly  on  that  subject? 

So  far  as  Judge  Douglas  addressed  his  speech  to  25 
me,  or  so  far  as  it  was  about  me,  it  is  my  business 
to  pay  some  attention  to  it.  I  have  heard  the  Judge 
state  two  or  three  times  what  he  has  stated  to-day, 
— that  in  a  speech  which  I  made  at  Springfield, 
Illinois,  I  had  in  a  very  especial  manner  complained  30 
that  th-c  Supreme  Court  in  the  Dred  Scott  case  had 


i68    THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

decided  that  a  negro  could  never  be  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States.  I  have  omitted  by  some  accident 
heretofore  to  analyze  this  statement,  and  it  is  re- 
quired of  me  to  notice  it  now.  In  point  of  fact  it  is 
5  untrue.  I  never  have  complained  especially  of  the 
Dred  Scott  decision  because  it  held  that  a  negro 
could  not  be  a  citizen,  and  the  Judge  is  always 
wrong  when  he  says  I  ever  did  so  complain  of  it. 
I  have  the  speech  here,  and  I  will  thank  him  or  any 

lo  of  his  friends  to  show  where  I  said  that  a  negro 
should  be  a  citizen,  and  complained  especially  of 
the  Dred  Scott  decision  because  it  declared  he  could 
not  be  one.  I  have  done  no  such  thing ;  and  Judge 
Douglas,  so  persistently  insisting  that  I  have  done 

15  so,  has  strongly  impressed  me  with  the  belief  of  a 
predetermination  on  his  part  to  misrepresent  me. 
He  could  not  get  his  foundation  for  insisting  that 
I  was  in  favor  of  this  negro  equality  anywhere  else 
as  well  as  he  could  by  assuming  that  untrue  propo- 

20  sition.  Let  me  tell  this  audience  what  is  true  in 
regard  to  that  matter ;  and  the  means  by  which  they 
may  correct-  me  if  I  do  not  tell  them  truly  is  by  a 
recurrence  to  the  speech  itself.  I  spoke  of  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  in  my  Springfield  speech,  and  I  was 

25  then  endeavoring  to  prove  that  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  was  a  portion  of  a  system  or  scheme  to 
make  slavery  national  in  this  country.  I  pointed 
out  what  things  had  been  decided  by  the  court.  I 
mentioned  as  a  fact  that  they  had  decided  that  a 

30  negro  could  not  be  a  citizen ;  that  they  had  done 
so,  as  I  supposed,  to  deprive  the  negro,  under  all 


MR.   UNCOLX'S   REPLY  169 

circumstances,  of  the  remotest  possihlility  of  ever 
becoming  a  citizen  and  claiming  the  rights  of  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States  under  a  certain  clause 
of  the  Constitution.  I  stated  that,  without  making 
any  complaint  of  it  at  all.  I  then  went  on  and  stated  5 
the  other  points  decided  in  the  case ;  namely,  that 
the  bringing  of  a  negro  into  the  State  of  Illinois 
and  holding  him  in  slavery  for  two  years  here  was 
a  matter  in  regard  to  which  they  would  not  decide 
whether  it  would  make  him  free  or  not ;  that  they  10 
decided  the  further  point  that  taking  him  into  a 
United  States  Territory  where  slavery  was  pro- 
hibited by  Act  of  Congress  did  not  make  him  free, 
because  that  Act  of  Congress,  as  they  held,  was 
unconstitutional.  I  mentioned  these  three  things  15 
as  making  up  the  points  decided  in  that  case.  I 
mentioned  them  in  a  lump,  taken  in  connection  with 
the  introduction  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  and  the  amend- 
ment of  Chase,  offered  at  the  time,  declaratory  of 
the  right  of  the  people  of  the  Territories  to  exclude  20 
slavery,  which  was  voted  down  by  the  friends  of 
the  bill.  I  mentioned  all  these  things  together,  as 
evidence  tending  to  prove  a  combination  and  con- 
spiracy to  make  the  institution  of  slavery  national. 
In  that  connection  and  in  that  way  I  mentioned  the  25 
decision  on  the  point  that  a  negro  could  not  be  a 
citizen,  and  in  no  other  connection. 

Out  of  this  Judge  Douglas  builds  up  his  beauti- 
ful fabrication  of  my  purpose  to  introduce  a  perfect 
social  and  political  equality  between  the  white  and   30 
black  races.    His  assertion  that  I  made  an  "  especial 


lO 


170   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

objection "  (that  is  his  exact  language)  to  the 
decision  on  this  account,  is  untrue  in  point  of  fact. 
Now,  while  I  am  upon  this  subject,  and  as  Henry 
Clay  has  been  alluded  to,  I  desire  to  place  myself, 
in  connection  with  Mr.  Clay,  as  nearly  right  before 
this  people  as  may  be.  I  am  quite  aware  what  the 
Judge's  object  is  here  by  all  these  allusions.  He 
knows  that  we  are  before  an  audience  having 
strong  sympathies  southward,  by  relationship,  place 
of  birth,  and  so  on.  He  desires  to  place  me  in  an 
extremely  Abolition  attitude.  He  read  upon  a 
former  occasion,  and  alludes,  without  reading, 
to-day  to  a  portion  of  a  speech  which  I  delivered 

15  in  Chicago.  In  his  quotations  from  that  speech,  as 
he  has  made  them  upon  former  occasions,  the  ex- 
tracts were  taken  in  such  a  way  as,  I  suppose, 
brings  them  within  the  definition  of  what  is  called 
garbling, — taking  portions  of  a  speech  which,  when 

20  taken  by  themselves,  do  not  present  the  entire  sense 
of  the  speaker  as  expressed  at  the  time.  I  propose, 
therefore,  out  of  that  same  speech,  to  show  how  one 
portion  of  it  which  he  skipped  over  (taking  an 
extract  before  and  an  extract  after)  will  give  a 
different  idea,  and  the  true  idea  I  intended  to  con- 
vey. It  will  take  me  some  little  time  to  read  it,  but 
I  believe  I  will  occupy  the  time  that  way. 

You  have  heard  him  frequently  allude  to  my  con- 
troversy with  him  in  regard  to  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  I  confess  that  I  have  had  a  struggle 
with  Judge  Douglas  on  that  matter,  and  I  will  try 
briefly  to  place  myself  right  in  regard  to  it  on  this 


25 


30 


MR.   LINCOLN'S   REPLY  171 

occasion.  I  said — and  it  is  between  the  extracts 
Judge  Douglas  has  taken  from  this  speech,  and  put 
in  his  pubHshed  speeches: 

"  It  may  be  argued  that  there  are  certain  conditions 
that  make  necessities  and  impose  them  upon  us,  and  to  5 
the  extent  that  a  necessity  is  imix)sed  upon  a  man  he 
must  submit  to  it.  I  think  that  was  the  condition  in 
which  we  found  ourselves  when  we  established  this 
government.  We  had  slaves  among  us,  we  could  not 
get  our  Constitution  unless  we  permitted  them  to  remain  10 
in  slavery,  we  could  not  secure  the  good  we  did  secure 
if  we  grasped  for  more ;  and  having  by  necessity  sub- 
mitted to  that  much,  it  does  not  destroy  the  principle 
that  is  the  charter  of  our  liberties.  Let  the  charter 
remain  as  our  standard."  ^5 

Now,  I  have  upon  all  occasions  declared  as 
strongly  as  Judge  Douglas  against  the  disposition 
to  interfere  with  the  existing  institution  of  slavery. 
You  hear  me  read  it  from  the  same  speech  from 
which  he  takes  garbled  extracts  for  the  purpose  of  20 
proving  upon  me  a  disposition  to  interfere  with  the 
institution  of  slavery,  and  establish  a  perfect  social 
and  political  equality  between  negroes  and  white 
people. 

Allow  me  while  upon  this  subject  briefly  to  pre-  25 
sent  one  other  extract  from  a  speech  of  mine,  more 
than  a  year  ago,  at  Springfield,  in  discussing  this 
very  same  question,  soon  after  Judge  Douglas  took 
his  ground  that  negroes  were  not  included  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence : 


172   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

"  I  think  the  authors  of  that  notable  instrument  in- 
tended to  include  all  men,  but  they  did  not  intend  to 
declare  all  men  equal  in  all  respects.  They  did  not 
mean  to  say  all  men  were  equal  in  color,  size,  intellect, 
5  moral  development,  or  social  capacity.  They  defined 
with  tolerable  distinctness  in  what  they  did  consider 
all  men  created  equal, — equal  in  certain  inalienable 
rights,  among  which  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of   happiness.     This   they   said,   and  this   they   meant, 

lo  They  did  not  mean  to  assert  the  obvious  untruth  that 
all  were  then  actually  enjoying  that  equality,  or  yet 
that  they  were  about  to  confer  it  immediately  upon 
them.  In  fact,  they  had  no  power  to  confer  such  a 
boon.     They  meant  simply  to  declare  the  right,  so  that 

15  the  enforcement  of  it  might  follow  as  fast  as  circum- 
stances should  permit. 

"  They  meant  to  set  up  a  standard  maxim  for  free 
society  which  should  be  familiar  to  all, — constantly 
looked   to,   constantly   labored   for,    and   even,    though 

20  never  perfectly  attained,  constantly  approximated,  and 
thereby  constantly  spreading  and  deepening  its  in- 
fluence, and  augmenting  the  happiness  and  value  of 
life  to  all  people,  of  all  colors,  everywhere." 

There  again  are  the  sentiments  I  have  expressed 
25  in  regard  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence  upon 
a  former  occasion, — sentiments  which  have  been  put 
in  print  and  read  wherever  anybody  cared  to  know 
what  so  humble  an  individual  as  myself  chose  to  say 
in  regard  to  it. 
30  At  Galesburgh,  the  other  day,  I  said,  in  answer 
to  Judge  Douglas,  that  three  years  ago  there  never 
had  been  a  man,  so  far  as  I  knew  or  believed,  in  the 


MR.  LIXCOLX'S  REPLY  i;3 

whole  world,  who  had  said  that  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  did  not  include  negroes  in  the  term 
"  all  men.''  I  reassert  it  to-day.  I  assert  that  Judge 
DouQ:las  and  all  his  friends  mav  search  the  whole 
records  of  the  country,  and  it  will  be  a  matter  of  5 
great  astonishment  to  me  if  they  shall  be  able  to  find 
that  one  human  being  three  years  ago  had  ever 
uttered  the  astounding  sentiment  that  the  term  '*  all 
men  "  in  the  Declaration  did  not  include  the  negro. 
Do  not  let  me  be  misunderstood.  I  know  that  more  lo 
than  three  years  ago  there  were  men  who,  finding 
this  assertion  constantly  in  the  way  of  their  schemes 
to  bring  about  the  ascendency  and  perpetuation  of 
slavery,  denied  the  truth  of  it.  I  know  that  Mr. 
Calhoun  and  all  the  politicians  of  his  school  denied  ^5 
the  truth  of  the  Declaration.  I  know  that  it  ran 
along  in  the  mouth  of  some  Southern  men  for  a 
period  of  years,  ending  at  last  in  that  shameful, 
though  rather  forcible,  declaration  of  Pettit  of  Indi- 
ana, upon  the  floor  of  the  United  States  Senate,  that  20 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  in  that  respect 
"  a  self-evident  lie,"  rather  than  a  self-evident  truth. 
But  I  say,  with  a  perfect  knowledge  of  all  this 
hawking  at  the  Declaration  without  directly  attack- 
ing it,  that  three  years  ago  there  never  had  lived  a  25 
man  who  had  ventured  to  assail  it  in  the  sneaking 
way  of  pretending  to  believe  it.  and  then  asserting 
it  did  not  include  the  negro.  I  believe  the  first  man 
who  ever  said  it  was  Chief  Justice  Taney  in  the 
Dred  Scott  case,  and  the  next  to  him  was  our  friend  3° 
Stephen  A.  Douglas.     And  now  it  has  become  the 


174   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

catchword  of  the  entire  party.  I  would  like  to  call 
upon  his  friends  everywhere  to  consider  how  they 
have  come  in  so  short  a  time  to  view  this  matter  in 
a  way  so  entirely  different  from  their  former  belief; 
5  to  ask  whether  they  are  not  being  borne  along  by 
an  irresistible  current, — whither,  they  know  not. 

In  answer  to  my  proposition  at  Galesburgh  last 
week,  I  see  that  some  man  in  Chicago  has  got  up  a 
letter,  addressed  to  the  Chicago  "  Times,"  to  show, 

10  as  he  professes,  that  somebody  had  said  so  before; 
and  he  signs  himself  "  An  Old  Line  Whig,"  if  I 
remember  correctly.  In  the  first  place,  I  would  say 
he  was  not  an  old  line  Whig.  I  am  somewhat  ac- 
quainted with  old  line  Whigs  from  the  origin  to 

15  the  end  of  that  party;  I  became  pretty  well  ac- 
quainted with  them,  and  I  know  they  always  had 
some  sense,  whatever  else  you  could  ascribe  to  them. 
I  know  there  never  was  one  who  had  not  more  sense 

than  to  try  to  show  by  the  evidence  he  produces  that 
20   some  man  had,  prior  to  the  time  I  named,  said  that 
negroes  were  not  included  in  the  term  "all  men  " 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.     What  is  the 
evidence  he  produces?     I  will  bring  forward    his 
evidence,  and  let  you  see  what  he  offers  by  way  of 
25   showing  that  somebody  more  than  three  years  ago 
had  said  negroes  were  not  included  in  the  Declara- 
tion.    He  brings  forward  part  of  a  speech   from 
Henry  Clay, — the  part  of  the  speech  of  Henry  Clay 
which  I  used  to  bring  forward  to  prove  precisely 
30  the  contrary.     I  guess  we  are  surrounded  to  some 
extent  to-day  by  the  old  friends  of  Mr.  Clay,  and 


MR.  LI X COIN'S  REPLY  175 

they  will  be  glad  to  hear  anything  from  that  author- 
ity. While  he  was  in  Indiana  a  man  presented  a 
petition  to  liberate  his  negroes,  and  he  (Mr.  Clay) 
made  a  speech  in  answer  to  it,  which  I  suppose  he 
carefully  wrote  out  himself  and  caused  to  be  i)ub-  5 
lished.  I  have  before  me  an  extract  from  that 
speech  which  constitutes  the  evidence  this  pretended 
"  Old  Line  Whig  "  at  Chicago  brought  forward  to 
show  that  Mr.  Clay  didn't  suppose  the  negro  was 
included  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Hear  ^° 
what  Mr.  Clav  said : 

"  And  what  is  the  foundation  of  this  appeal  to  me  in 
Indiana  to  liberate  the  slaves  under  my  care  in  Ken- 
tucky ?  It  is  a  general  declaration  in  the  act  announcing 
to  the  world  the  independence  of  the  thirteen  American  15 
colonies,  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  Now,  as  an 
abstract  principle,  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  truth  of 
that  declaration ;  and  it  is  desirable,  in  the  original  con- 
struction of  society  and  in  organised  societies,  to  keep 
it  in  view  as  a  great  fundamental  principle.  But,  then,  20 
I  apprehend  that  in  no  society  that  ever  did  exist,  or 
ever  shall  be  formed,  was  or  can  the  equality  asserted 
among  the  members  of  the  human  race  be  practically 
enforced  and  carried  out.  There  are  portions,  large 
portions, — women,  minors,  insane,  culprits,  transient  25 
sojourners, — that  will  always  probably  remain  subject 
to  the  government  of  another  portion  of  the  com- 
munity. 

"  That  declaration,  whatever  may  be  the  extent  of  its 
import,   was  made  by  the  delegations  of  the   thirteen   30 
States.     In  most  of  them  slavery  existed,  and  had  long 
existed,  and  was  established  by  law.     It  was  introduced 


176   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

and  forced  upon  the  colonies  by  the  paramount  law  of 
England.  Do  you  believe  that  in  making  that  declara- 
tion the  States  that  concurred  in  it  intended  that  it 
should  be  tortured  into  a  virtual  emancipation  of  all 
5  the  slaves  within  their  respective  limits?  Would  Vir- 
ginia and  other  Southern  States  have  ever  united  in  a 
declaration  which  was  to  be  interpreted  into  an  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  among  them?  Did  any  one  of  the 
thirteen  colonies  entertain  such  a  design  or  expecta- 

lo  tion?  To  impute  such  a  secret  and  unavowed  purpose, 
would  be  to  charge  a  political  fraud  upon  the  noblest 
band  of  patriots  that  ever  assembled  in  council, — a 
fraud  upon  the  Confederacy  of  the  Revolution ;  a  fraud 
upon  the  union  of  those  States  whose  Constitution  not 

15  only  recognized  the  lawfulness  of  slavery,  but  permitted 
the  importation  of  slaves  from  Africa  until  the  year 
1808." 


This  is  the  entire  quotation  brought  forward  to 
prove  that  somebody  previous  to  three  years  ago 

20  had  said  the  negro  was  not  included  in  the  term  "  all 
men  "  in  the  Declaration.  How  does  it  do  so  ?  In 
what  way  has  it  a  tendency  to  prove  that?  Mr. 
Clay  says  it  is  true  as  an  abstract  principle  that  all 
men  are  created  equal,  but  that  we  cannot  practically 

25  apply  it  in  all  cases.  He  illustrates  this  by  bringing 
forward  the  cases  of  females,  minors,  and  insane 
persons,  with  whom  it  cannot  be  enforced ;  but  he 
says  it  is  true  as  an  abstract  principle  in  the  organi- 
zation of  society  as  well  as  in  organized  society  and 

30  it  should  be  kept  in  view  as  a  fundamental  principle. 
Let  me  read  a  few  words  more  before  I  add  some 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REPLY  \77 

comments  of  my  own.     Mr.  Clay  says,  a  little  fur- 
ther on : 

"  I  desire  no  concealment  of  my  opinions  in  regard  to 
the  institution  of  slavery.  I  look  upon  it  as  a  great 
evil,  and  deeply  lament  that  we  have  derived  it  from  the  5 
parental  government  and  from  our  ancestors.  But 
here  they  are,  and  the  question  is,  How  can  they 
be  best  dealt  with?  If  a  state  of  nature  existed,  and 
we  were  about  to  lay  the  foundations  of  society,  no  man 
zi'ould  be  more  strongly  opposed  than  I  should  be  to  lo 
incorporate  the  institution  of  slavery  among  its 
elements." 

Now,  here  in  this  same  book,  in  this  same  speech, 
in  this  same  extract,  brought  forward  to  prove  that 
Mr.  Clay  held  that  the  negro  was  not  included  in   i5 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  is  no  such  state- 
ment on  his  part,  but  the  declaration  that  it  is  a 
great  fundamental  truth  which  should  be  constantly 
kept  in  view  in  the  organization  of  society  and  in 
societies  already  organized.     But  if  I  say  a  word  20 
about  it ;  if  I  attempt,  as  Mr.  Clay  said  all  good  men 
ought  to  do,  to  keep  it  in  view ;  if,  in  this  "  organ- 
ized society,"  I  ask  to  have  the  public  eye  turned 
upon  it ;  if  I  ask,  in  relation  to  the  organization  of 
new  Territories,  that  the  public  eye  should  be  turned   25 
upon  it, — forthwith  I  am  vilified  as  you  hear  me 
to-day.    What  have  I  done  that  I  have  not  the  license 
of  Henry  Clay's  illustrious  example  here  in  doing? 
Have  I  done  aught  that  I  have  not  his  authority 
for,  while  maintaining  that  in  organizing  new  Ter-   30 
ritories   and   societies,    this    fundamental    principle 


178   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

should  be  regarded,  and  in  organized  society  hold- 
ing it  up  to  the  public  view  and  recognizing  what 
he  recognized  as  the  great  principle  of  free 
government  ? 

5  And  when  this  new  principle — this  new  proposi- 
tion that  no  human  being  ever  thought  of  three 
years  ago — is  brought  forward,  /  combat  it  as  hav- 
ing an  evil  tendency,  if  not  an  evil  design.  I  com- 
bat  it   as   having  a  tendency   to   dehumanize   the 

lo  negro,  to  take  away  from  him  the  right  of  ever 
striving  to  be  a  man.  I  combat  it  as  being  one  of 
the  thousand  things  constantly  done  in  these  days 
to  prepare  the  public  mind  to  make  property,  and 
nothing  but  property,  of  the  negro  in  all  the  States 

15   of  this  Union. 

But  there  is  a  point  that  I  wish,  before  leaving 
this  part  of  the  discussion,  to  ask  attention  to.  I 
have  read  and  I  repeat  the  words  of  Henry  Clay : 

20  "  I  desire  no  concealment  of  my  opinions  in  regard 
to  the  institution  of  slavery.  I  look  upon  it  as  a  great 
evil,  and  deeply  lament  that  we  have  derived  it  from  the 
parental  government  and  from  our  ancestors.  I  wish 
every  slave  in  the  United  States  was  in  the  country  of 

25  his  ancestors.  But  here  they  are;  the  question  is, 
How  can  they  best  be  dealt  with?  If  a  state  of  nature 
existed,  and  we  were  about  to  lay  the  foundations  of 
society,  no  man  would  be  more  strongly  opposed  than 
I  should  be  to  incorporate  the  institution  of  slavery 

30  among  its  elements." 

The  principle  upon  which  I  have  insisted  in  this 


MR.  LINCOLN'S  REPLY  179 

canvass  is  in  relation  to  laying  the  foundations  of 
new  societies.  I  have  never  sought  to  apply  these 
principles  to  the  old  States  for  the  purpose  of  abol- 
ishincr  slaverv  in  those  States.  It  is  nothincf  but  a 
miserable  perversion  of  what  I  have  said,  to  assume  5 
that  I  have  declared  Missouri,  or  any  other  Slave 
State,  shall  emancipate  her  slaves ;  I  have  proposed 
no  such  thing.  But  when  Mr.  Clay  says  that  in 
laying  the  foundations  of  societies  in  our  Territo- 
ries where  it  does  not  exist,  he  would  be  opposed  10 
to  the  introduction  of  slavery  as  an  element,  I  insist 
that  we  have  his  zvarrant — his  license — for  insisting 
upon  the  exclusion  of  that  element  which  he  declared 
in  such  strong  and  emphatic  language  was  most 
hateful  to  him.  i5 

Judge  Douglas  has  again  referred  to  a  Spring- 
field speech  in  which  I  said  ''  a  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand."  The  Judge  has  so 
often  made  the  entire  quotation  from  that  speech 
that  I  can  make  it  from  memory.  I  used  this  ^*^ 
language : 

"  We  are  now  far  into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy 
was    initiated    with    the   avowed   object    and   confident- 
promise   of   putting   an    end   to   the   slavery   agitation. 
Under  the  operation  of  this  policy,  that  agitation  has  not   ^5 
only  not  ceased,  but  has  constantly  augmented.     In  my 
opinion  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been 
reached  and  passed.     '  A  house  divided  against   itself 
cannot  stand.'     I   believe  this  government  cannot  en- 
dure permanently,  half  slave  and  half  free.     I  do  not  3^ 
expect  the  house  to  fall,  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease 


i8o   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the 
other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the 
further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public 
mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course 
of  ultima,te  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it 
forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States, 
Id  as  well  as  new.  North  as  well  as  South." 


That  extract  and  the  sentiments  expressed  in  it 
have  been  extremely  offensive  to  Judge  Douglas. 

^°  He  has  warred  upon  .them  as  Satan  wars  upon  the 
Bible.  His  perversions  upon  it  are  endless.  Here 
now  are  my  views  upon  it  in  brief. 

I  said  we  were  now  far  into  the  fifth  year  since  a 
policy  was   initiated  with  the   avowed  object  and 

^5  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to  the  slavery 
agitation.  Is  it  not  so?  When  that  Nebraska  bill 
was  brought  forward  four  years  ago  last  January, 
was  it  not  for  the  "avowed  object"  of  putting  an 
end  to  the  slavery-  agitation?    We  were  to  have  no 

20  more  agitation  in  Congress ;  it  was  all  to  be  ban- 
ished to  the  Territories.  By  the  way,  I  will  remark 
here  that,  as  Judge  Douglas  is  very  fond  of  com- 
plimenting Mr.  Crittenden  in  these  days,  Mr.  Crit- 
tenden has  said  there  was  a  falsehood  in  that  whole 

25  business,  for  there  was  no  slavery  agitation  at  that 
time  to  allay.  W^e  were  for  a  little  while  quiet  on 
the  troublesome  thing,  and  that  very  allaying  plas- 
ter of  Judge  Douglas  stirred  it  up  again.  But  was 
it  not  understood  or  intimated  with  the  "  confident 

30  promise  "  of  putting  an  end  to  the  slavery  agita- 


MR.   LIXCOLN'S  REPLY  i8i 

tion?  Surely  it  was.  In  every  six?cch  you  heard 
Judge  Douglas  make,  until  he  got  into  this  "  im- 
broglio," as  they  call  it,  with  the  Administration 
about  the  Lecompton  Constitution,  every  speech  on 
that  Nebraska  bill  was  full  of  his  felicitations  that  5 
we  were  just  at  tJic  cud  of  the  slavery  agitation. 
The  last  tip  of  the  last  joint  of  the  old  serpent's  tail 
was  just  drawing  out  of  view.  But  has  it  proved 
so?  I  have  asserted  that  under  that  policy  that 
agitation  *'  has  not  only  not  ceased,  but  has  con-  lo 
stantly  augmented."  When  was  there  ever  a  greater 
agitation  in  Congress  than  last  winter?  When  was 
it  as  great  in  the  country  as  to-day? 

There  was  a  collateral  object  in  the  introduction 
of  that  Nebraska  policy,  which  was  to  clothe  the  15 
people  of  the  Territories  with  a  superior  degree  of 
self-government,  beyond  what  they  had  ever  had 
before.     The  first  object  and  the  main  one  of  con- 
ferring upon  the  people  a  higher  degree  of  "  self- 
government  "  is  a  question  of  fact  to  be  determined  20 
by  you  in  answer  to  a  single  question.     Have  you 
ever  heard  or  known  of  a  people  anywhere  on  earth 
who  had  as  little  to  do  as,  in  the  first  instance  of  its 
use,    the    people    of    Kansas    had    with    this    same 
right   of   "self-government"?     In   its   main   policy   25 
and  in  its  collateral  object,  it  lias  been  nothin^^  but 
a  liznng,  creeping  lie  from  the  time  of  its  introduc- 
tion till  to-day, 

I    have   intimated   that   I   thought   the   agitation 

would   not   cease   until   a   crisis   should   have   been 

30 

reached  and  passed.     I  have  stated  in  what  way  I 


i82   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

thought  it  would  be  reached  and  passed.  I  have 
said  that  it  might  go  one  way  or  the  other.  We 
might,  by  arresting  the  further  spread  of  it,  and 
placing  it  where  the  fathers  originally  placed  it,  put 

5    it  where  the  public  mind  should  rest  in  the  belief 
that  it  was   in  the   course   of  ultimate   extinction. 
Thus  the  agitation  may  cease.     It  may  be  pushed- 
forward  until  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the 
States,  old  as  well  as  new.  North  as  well  as  South. 

1°  I  have  said,  and  I  repeat,  my  wish  is  that  the  fur- 
ther spread  of  it  may  be  arrested,  and  that  it  may 
be  placed  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the 
belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction. 
I  have  expressed  that  as  my  wish.     I  entertain  the 

15  opinion,  upon  evidence  sufficient  to  my  mind,  that 
the  fathers  of  this  government  placed  that  institu- 
tion where  the  public  mind  did  rest  in  the  belief 
that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  Let 
me  ask  why  they  made  provision  that  the  source  of 

20  slavery — the  African  slave-trade — should  be  cut  off 
at  the  end  of  twenty  years?  Why  did  they  make 
provision  that  in  all  the  new  territory  we  owned  at 
that  time  slavery  should  be  forever  inhibited? 
Why  stop  its  spread  in  one  direction,  and  cut  off  its 

25  source  in  another,  if  they  did  not  look  to  its  being 
placed  in  the  course  of  its  ultimate  extinction  ? 

Again:  the  institution  of  slavery  is  only  men- 
tioned in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  two 
or  three  times,  and  in  neither  of  these  cases  does 

30  the  word  "slavery"  or  ''negro  race"  occur;  but 
covert  language  is  used  each  time,  and  for  a  pur- 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REPLY  183 

pose  full  of  sio;niricancc.  What  is  the  lanc^uap^e  in 
rcj::^ard  to  the  prohibition  of  the  African  slave- 
trade?  It  runs  in  about  this  way:  ''The  migra- 
tion or  importation  of  such  persons  as  any  of  the 
States  now  existing  shall  think  proper  to  admit,  5 
shall  not  be  prohibited  by  the  Congress  prior  to  the 
year  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  eight." 

The  next  allusion  in  the  Constitution  to  the  ques- 
tion of  slavery  and  the  black  race  is  on  the  subject 
of  the  basis  of  representation,  and  there  the  Ian-    ^o 
guage  used  is : 

"Representatives  and  direct  taxes  shall  be  appor- 
tioned among  the  several  States  which  may  be  included 
within  this  Union,  according  to  their  respective  num- 
bers, which  shall  be  determined  by  adding  to  the  whole  15 
number  of  free  persons,  including  those  bound  to  serv- 
ice for  a  term  of  years,  and  excluding  Indians  not 
taxed. — three-fifths  of  all  other  persons." 

It  says  "  persons,"  not  slaves,  not  negroes ;  but 
this  ''  three-fifths  "  can  be  applied  to  no  other  class   20 
among  us  than  the  negroes. 

Lastly,  in  the  provision  for  the  reclamation  oi 
fugitive  slaves,  it  is  said :  "  No  person  held  to  serv- 
ice or  labor  in  one  State,  under  the  laws  thereof, 
escaping  into  another,  shall  in  consequence  of  any  25 
law  or  regulation  therein  be  discharged  from  such 
service  or  labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up,  on  claim 
of  the  party  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be 
due."  There  again  there  is  no  mention  of  the  word 
"  negro  "  or  of  slavery.    In  all  three  of  these  places,    30 


i84   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

being  the  only  allusions  to  slavery  in  the  instru- 
ment, covert  language  is  used.  Language  is  used 
not  suggesting  that  slavery  existed  or  that  the 
black  race  were  among  us.  And  I  understand  the 
5  contemporaneous  history  of  those  times  to  be  that 
covert  language  was  used  with  a  purpose,  and  that 
purpose  was  that  in  our  Constitution,  which  it  was 
hoped  and  is  still  hoped  will  endure  forever, — 
when  it  should  be  read  by  intelligent  and  patriotic 

lo  men,  after  the  institution  of  slavery  had  passed 
from  amongst  us, — there  should  be  nothing  on  the 
face  of  the  great  charter  of  liberty  suggesting  that 
such  a  thing  as  negro  slavery  had  ever  existed 
among  us.     This  is  part  of  the  evidence  that  the 

15  fathers  of  the  government  expected  and  intended 
the  institution  of  slavery  to  come  to  an  end.  They 
expected  and  intended  that  it  should  be  in  the  course 
of  ultimate  extinction.  And  when  I  say  that  I 
desire  to  see  the  further  spread  of  it  arrested,  I  only 

20  say  I  desire  to  see  that  done  which  the  fathers  have 
first  done.  When  I  say  I  desire  to  see  it  placed 
where  the  public  mind  will  rest  in  the  belief  that  it 
is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  I  only  say  I 
desire  to  see  it  placed  where  they  placed  it.     It  is 

25  not  true  that  our  fathers,  as  Judge  Douglas  assumes, 
made  this  government  part  slave  and  part  free. 
Understand  the  sense  in  which  he  puts  it.  He 
assumes  that  slavery  is  a  rightful  thing  within 
itself, — was  introduced  by  the  framers  of  the  Con- 

30  stitution.  The  exact  truth  is,  that  they  found  the 
institution  existing  among  us,  and  they  left  it  as 


MR.   LIXCOLX'S  REPLY  185 

they  found  it.  lUit  in  making  the  government  they 
left  this  institution  with  many  clear  marks  of  dis- 
approbation upon  it.  They  found  slavery  among 
them,  and  they  left  it  among  them  because  of  the 
difficulty — the  absolute  impossibility — of  its  immc-  5 
diate  removal.  And  when  Judge  Douglas  asks  me 
why  we  cannot  let  it  remain  part  slave  and  part 
free,  as  the  fathers  of  the  government  made  it,  he 
asks  a  question  based  upon  an  assumption  which  is 
itself  a  falsehood ;  and  I  turn  upon  him  and  ask  10 
him  the  question,  when  the  policy  that  the  fathers 
of  the  government  had  adopted  in  relation  to  this 
element  among  us  was  the  best  policy  in  the  world, 
the  only  wise  policy,  the  only  policy  that  we  can 
ever  safely  continue  upon,  that  will  ever  give  us  i5 
peace,  unless  this  dangerous  element  masters  us  all 
and  becomes  a  national  institution, — /  turn  upon 
him  and  ask  him  zvhy  he  could  not  leave  it  alone. 
I  turn  and  ask  him  why  he  was  driven  to  the  neces- 
sity of  introducing  a  nczv  policy  in  regard  to  it.  20 
He  has  himself  said  he  introduced  a  new  policy, 
lie  said  so  in  his  speech  on  the  22d  of  March  of 
the  present  year,  1858.  I  ask  him  why  he  could 
not  let  it  remain  where  our  fathers  placed  it.  I  ask, 
too,  of  Judge  Douglas  and  his  friends  why  w^e  shall  ^^ 
not  again  place  this  institution  upon  the  basis  on 
which  the  fathers  left  it.  I  ask  you,  when  he  infers 
that  I  am  in  favor  of  setting  the  Free  and  Slave 
States  at  war,  when  the  institution  was  placed  in 
that  attitude  by  those  who  made  the  Constitution,  3Q 
did  they  make  any  zvarF    If  we  had  no  war  out  of  it 


i86   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

when  thus  placed,  wherein  is  the  ground  of  belief 
that  we  shall  have  war  out  of  it  if  we  return  to  that 
policy?  Have  we  had  any  peace  upon  this  matter 
springing  from  any  other  basis?  I  maintain  that 
5  we  have  not.  I  have  proposed  nothing  more  than 
a  return  to  the  policy  of  the  fathers. 

I  confess,  when  I  propose  a  certain  measure  of 
policy,  it  is  not  enough  for  me  that  I  do  not  intend 
anything  evil  in  the  result,  but  it  is  incumbent  on 

lo  me  to  show  that  it  has  not  a  tendency  to  that  result. 
I  have  met  Judge  Douglas  in  that  point  of  view.  I 
have  not  only  made  the  declaration  that  I  do  not 
mean  to  produce  a  conflict  between  the  States,  but 
I  have  tried  to  show  by  fair  reasoning,  and  I  think 

15  I  have  shown  to  the  minds  of  fair  men,  that  I  pro- 
pose nothing  but  what  has  a  most  peaceful  tendency. 
The  quotation  that  I  happened  to  make  in  that 
Springfield  speech,  that  ''  a  house  divided  against 
itself  cannot  stand,"  and  which  has  proved  so  offen- 

20  sive  to  the  Judge,  was  part  and  parcel  of  the  same 
thing.  He  tries  to  show  that  variety  in  the  domes- 
tic institutions  of  the  different  States  is  necessary 
and  indispensable.  I  do  not  dispute  it.  I  have  no 
controversy    with    Judge    Douglas    about    that.     I 

25  shall  very  readily  agree  with  him  that  it  would  be 
foolish  for  us  to  insist  upon  having  a  cranberry  law 
here  in  Illinois,  where  we  have  no  cranberries, 
because  they  have  a  cranberry  law  in  Indiana, 
where  they  have  cranberries.     I  should  insist  that 

^'^  it  would  be  exceedingly  wrong  in  us  to  deny  to 
Virginia  the  right  to  enact  oyster  laws,  where  they 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REPLY  187 

have  oysters,  because  we  want  no  such  laws  here. 
I  understand,  I  hope,  quite  as  well  as  Judge  Doug- 
las or  anybody  else,  that  the  variety  in  the  soil  and 
climate  and  face  of  the  country,  and  consequent 
variety  in  the  industrial  pursuits  and  productions  of  5 
a  country,  require  systems  of  law  conforming  to 
this  variety  in  the  natural  features  of  the  country. 
I  understand  quite  as  well  as  Judge  Douglas  that  if 
we  here  raise  a  barrel  of  flour  more  than  we  w^ant, 
and  the  Louisianians  raise  a  barrel  of  sugar  more  10 
than  they  want,  it  is  of  mutual  advantage  to  ex- 
change. That  produces  commerce,  brings  us 
together,  and  makes  us  better  friends.  We  like  one 
another  the  more  for  it.  And  I  understand  as  well 
as  Judge  Douglas,  or  anybody  else,  that  these  15 
mutual  accommodations  are  the  cements  which 
bind  together  the  different  parts  of  this  Union ; 
that  instead  of  being  a  thing  to  "  divide  the  house," 
— figuratively  expressing  the  Union, — they  tend  to 
sustain  it ;  they  are  the  props  of  the  house,  tending  20 
always  to  hold  it  up. 

But  when  I  have  admitted  all  this,  I  ask  if  there 
is  any  parallel  between  these  things  and  this  insti- 
tution of  slavery?  I  do  not  see  that  there  is  any 
parallel  at  all  between  them.  Consider  it.  When  25 
have  we  had  any  difficulty  or  quarrel  amongst  our- 
selves about  the  cranberry  laws  of  Indiana,  or  the 
oyster  laws  of  \'irginia,  or  the  pine-lumber  law's  of 
Maine,  or  the  fact  that  Louisiana  produces  sugar, 
and  Illinois  flour?  When  have  we  had  any  quarrels  30 
over   these   things?     When    have   we   had    perfect 


i88   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

peace  in  regard  to  this  thing  which  I  say  is  an  ele- 
ment of  discord  in  this  Union?  We  have  some- 
times had  peace,  but  when  was  it?  It  was  when 
the  institution  of  slavery  remained  quiet  where  it 
5  was.  We  have  had  difficulty  and  turmoil  whenever 
it  has  made  a  struggle  to  spread  itself  where  it  was 
not.  I  ask,  then,  if  experience  does  not  speak  in 
thunder-tones,  telling  us  that  the  policy  which  has 
given  peace   to  the   country  heretofore,  being   re- 

lo  turned  to,  gives  the  greatest  promise  of  peace  again. 
You  may  say,  and  Judge  Douglas  has  intimated 
the  same  thing,  that  all  this  difficulty  in  regard  to 
the  institution  of  slavery  is  the  mere  agitation  of 
office-seekers  and  ambitious   Northern    politicians. 

^5  He  thinks  we  want  to  get  "  his  place,"  I  suppose. 
I  agree  that  there  are  office-seekers  amongst  us.  The 
Bible  says  somewhere  that  we  are  desperately  sel- 
fish. I  think  we  would  have  discovered  that  fact 
without  the  Bible.     I  do  not  claim  that  I  am  any 

20  less  so  than  the  average  of  men,  but  I  do  claim  that 
I  am  not  more  selfish  than  Judge  Douglas. 

But  is  it  true  that  all  the  difficulty  and  agitation 
we  have  in  regard  to  this  institution  of  slavery 
springs  from  office-seeking,   from  the  mere  ambi- 

25  tion  of  politicians?  Is  that  the  truth?  How  many 
times  have  we  had  danger  from  this  question?  Go 
back  to  the  day  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  Go 
back  to  the  Nullification  question,  at  the  bottom  of 
which  lay  this  same  slavery  question.     Go  back  to 

30  the  time  of  the  Annexation  of  Texas.  Go  back  to 
the  troubles  that  led  to  the  Compromise  of  1850. 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REPLY  i8g 

You  will  find  that  every  time,  with  the  single  excep- 
tion of  the  Nullification  question,  they  sprung  from 
an  endeavor  to  spread  this  institution.  There  never 
was  a  party  in  the  history  of  this  country,  and  there 
probably  never  will  be,  of  sufficient  strength  to  dis-  5 
turb  the  general  peace  of  the  country.  Parties 
themselves  may  be  divided  and  quarrel  on  minor 
questions,  yet  it  extends  not  beyond  the  parties  them- 
selves. But  does  not  this  question  make  a  disturb- 
ance outside  of  political  circles?  Does  it  not  enter  10 
into  the  churches  and  rend  them  asunder?  What 
divided  the  great  Methodist  Church  into  two  parts, 
North  and  South?  What  has  raised  this  constant 
disturbance  in  every  Presbyterian  General  Assem- 
bly that  meets?  What  disturbed  the  Unitarian 
Church  in  this  very  city  two  years  ago?  What  has  15 
jarred  and  shaken  the  great  American  Tract  Soci- 
ety recently,  not  yet  splitting  it,  but  sure  to  divide  it 
in  the  end  ?  Is  it  not  this  same  mighty,  deep-seated 
power  that  somehow  operates  on  the  minds  of  men, 
exciting  and  stirring  them  up  in  every  avenue  of  20 
society, — in  politics,  in  religion,  in  literature,  in 
morals,  in  all  the  manifold  relations  of  life?  Is 
this  the  work  of  politicians?  Is  that  irresistible 
power,  which  for  fifty  years  has  shaken  the  govern- 
ment and  agitated  the  people,  to  be  stilled  and  25 
subdued  by  pretending  that  it  is  an  exceedingly 
simple  thing,  and  we  ought  not  to  talk  about  it? 
If  you  will  get  everybody  else  to  stop  talking  about 
it,  I  assure  you  I  will  quit  before  they  have  half 
done  so.     But  where  is  the  philosophy  or  states-   3° 


190   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

manship  which  assumes  that  you  can  quiet  that 
disturbing  element  in  our  society  which  has  dis- 
turbed us  for  more  than  half  a  century,  which  has 
been  the  only  serious  danger  that  has  threatened 
5  our  institutions, — I  say,  where  is  the  philosophy  or 
the  statesmanship  based  on  the  assumption  that  we 
are  to  quit  talking  about  it,  and  that  the  public  mind 
is  all  at  once  to  cease  being  agitated  by  it?  Yet 
this  is  the  policy  here  in  the  North  that  Douglas  is 

lo  advocating, — that  we  are  to  care  nothing  about  it ! 
I  ask  you  if  it  is  not  a  false  philosophy.  Is  it  not 
a  false  statesmanship  that  undertakes  to  build  up  a 
system  of  policy  upon  the  basis  of  caring  nothing 
about  the  very  thing  that  everybody  does  care  the 

15  most  about? — a  thing  which  all  experience  has 
shown  we  care  a  very  great  deal  about? 

The  Judge  alludes  very  often  in  the  course  of 
his  remarks  to  the  exclusive  right  which  the  States 
have  to  decide  the  whole  thing  for  themselves.     I 

20  agree  with  him  very  readily  that  the  different  States 
have  that  right.  He  is  but  fighting  a  man  of  straw 
when  he  assumes  that  I  am  contending  against  the 
right  of  the  States  to  do  as  they  please  about  it. 
Our  controversy  with  him  is  in  regard  to  the  new 

25  Territories.  We  agree  that  when  the  States  come 
in  as  States  they  have  the  right  and  the  power  to 
do  as  they  please.  We  have  no  power  as  citizens 
of  the  Free  States,  or  in  our  Federal  capacity  as 
members  of  the  Federal  Union  through  the  Gen- 

30  eral  Government,  to  disturb  slavery  in  the  States 
where   it  exists.     We  profess   constantly   that   we 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REPLY  191 

have  no  more  inclination  than  belief  in  the  power 
of  the  government  to  disturb  it ;  yet  we  are  driven 
constantly  to  defend  ourselves  from  the  assumption 
that  we  are  warring  upon  the  rights  of  the  States. 
What  I  insist  upon  is,  that  the  new  Territories  shall  5 
be  kept  free  from  it  while  in  the  Territorial  condi- 
tion. Judge  Douglas  assumes  that  we  have  no 
interest  in  them, — that  we  have  no  right  whatever 
to  interfere.  I  think  we  have  some  interest.  I 
think  that  as  wdiite  men  we  have.  Do  we  not  wish  10 
for  an  outlet  for  our  surplus  population,  if  I  may  so 
express  myself?  Do  we  not  feel  an  interest  in  getting 
to  that  outlet  with  such  institutions  as  we  would 
like  to  have  prevail  there?  If  you  go  to  the  Terri- 
tory opposed  to  slavery,  and  another  man  comes  15 
upon  the  same  ground  with  his  slave,  upon  the 
assumption  that  the  things  are  equal,  it  turns  out 
that  he  has  the  equal  right  all  his  way,  and  you 
have  no  part  of  it  your  way.  If  'he  goes  in  and 
makes  it  a  Slave  Territory,  and  by  consequence  a  20 
Slave  State,  is  it  not  time  that  those  who  desire  to 
have  it  a  Free  State  were  on  equal  ground?  Let 
me  suggest  it  in  a  different  way.  How  many  Dem- 
ocrats are  there  about  here  ["  A  thousand  "]  who 
have  left  Slave  States  and  come  into  the  Free  State  25 
of  Illinois  to  get  rid  of  the  institution  of  slavery? 
[Another  voice:  "  A  thousand  and  one."]  I  reckon 
there  are  a  thousand  and  one.  I  will  ask  you,  if 
the  policy  you  are  now  advocating  had  prevailed 
when  this  country  was  in  a  Territorial  condition,  30 
where  would  you  have  gone  to  get  rid  of  it?  Where 


192   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

would  you  have  found  your  Free  State  or  Territory 
to  go  to?  And  when  hereafter,  for  any  cause,  the 
people  in  this  place  shall  desire  to  find  new  homes, 
if  they  wish  to  be  rid  of  the  institution,  where  will 
5  they  find  the  place  to  go  to  ? 

Now,  irrespective  of  the  moral  aspect  of  this 
question  as  to  whether  there  is  a  right  or  wrong  in 
enslaving  a  negro,  I  am  still  in  favor  of  our  new 
Territories  being  in   such   a   condition   that   white 

^o  men  may  find  a  home, — may  find  some  spot  where 
they  can  better  their  condition ;  where  they  can 
settle  upon  new  soil  and  better  their  condition  in 
life.  I  am  in  favor  of  this,  not  merely  (I  must  say 
it  here  as  I  have  elsewhere)  for  our  own  people  who 

^5  are  born  amongst  us,  but  as  an  outlet  for  free  white 
people  everywhere,  the  world  over, — in  which 
Hans,  and  Baptiste,  and  Patrick,  and  all  other  men 
from  all  the  world,  may  find  new  homes  and  better 
their  conditions  in  life. 

^^-'  I  have  stated  upon  former  occasions,  and  I  may 
as  well  state  again,  what  I  understand  to  be  the 
real  issue  in  this  controversy  between  Judge  Doug- 
las and  myself.  On  the  point  of  my  wanting  to 
make  war  between  the  Free  and  the  Slave  States, 

^5  there  has  been  no  issue  between  us.  So,  too,  when 
he  assumes  that  I  am  in  favor  of  introducing  a  per- 
fect social  and  political  equality  between  the  white 
and  black  races.  These  are  false  issues,  upon  which 
Judge  Douglas  has  tried  to  force  the  controversy. 

30  There  is  no  foundation  in  truth  for  the  charge  that 
I  maintain  either  of  these  propositions.     The  real 


MR.   LIXCOLX'S   REPLY  193 

issue  in  this  controversy — the  one  pressing  upon 
every  mind — is  the  sentiment  on  the  part  of  one 
class  that  looks  upon  the  institution  of  slavery  as  a 
mrong,  and  of  another  class  that  docs  not  look  upon 
it  as  a  wronjT^.  The  sentiment  that  contemplates  the  5 
institution  of  slavery  in  this  country  as  a  wrong  is 
the  sentiment  of  the  Republican  party.  It  is  the 
sentiment  around  which  all  their  actions,  all  their 
arguments,  circle,  from  which  all  their  propositions 
radiate.  They  look  upon  it  as  being  a  moral,  social,  lo 
and  political  wrong;  and  while  they  contemplate  it 
as  such,  they  nevertheless  have  due  regard  for  its 
actual  existence  among  us,  and  the  difficulties  of 
getting  rid  of  it  in  any  satisfactory  way  and  to  all 
the  constitutional  obligations  thrown  about  it.  Yet,  15 
having  a  due  regard  for  these,  they  desire  a  policy 
in  regard  to  it  that  looks  to  its  not  creating  any 
more  danger.  They  insist  that  it  should,  as  far  as 
may  be,  be  treated  as  a  wrong;  and  one  of  the 
methods  of  treating  it  as  a  wrong  is  to  make  pro-  20 
vision  that  it  sJiall  grozu  no  larger.  They  also  desire 
a  policy  that  looks  to  a  peaceful  end  of  slavery  at 
some  time,  as  being  wrong.  These  are  the  views 
they  entertain  in  regard  to  it  as  I  understand  them ; 
and  all  their  sentiments,  all  their  arguments  and  25 
propositions,  are  brought  within  this  range.  I  have 
said,  and  I  repeat  it  here,  that  if  there  be  a  man 
amongst  us  who  does  not  think  that  the  institution 
of  slavery  is  wrong  in  any  one  of  the  aspects  of 
which  I  have  spoken,  he  is  misplaced,  and  ought  not  3o 
to  be  with  us.     And  if  there  be  a  man  amongst  us 


194   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

who  is  so  impatient  of  it  as  a  wrong  as  to  disregard 
its  actual  presence  amongst  us  and  the  difficulty  of 
getting  rid  of  it  suddenly  in  a  satisfactory  way,  and 
to  disregard  the  constitutional  obligations  thrown 
5  about  it,  that  man  is  misplaced  if  he  is  on  our  plat- 
form. We  disclaim  sympathy  with  him  in  practical 
action.     He  is  not  placed  properly  with  us. 

On  this  subject  of  treating  it  as  a  wrong,  and 
limiting  its  spread,  let  me  say  a  word.     Has  any- 

lo  thing  ever  threatened  the  existence  of  this  Union 
save  and  except  this  very  institution  of  slavery? 
What  is  it  that  we  hold  most  dear  amongst  us  ?  Our 
own  liberty  and  prosperity.  What  has  ever  threat- 
ened our  liberty  and  prosperity,   save  and  except 

15  this  institution  of  slavery?  If  this  is  true,  how  do 
you  propose  to  improve  the  condition  of  things  by 
enlarging  slavery, — by  spreading  it  out  and  making 
it  bigger?  You  may  have  a  wen  or  cancer  upon 
your  person,  and  not  be  able  to  cut  it  out,  lest  you 

20  bleed  to  death ;  but  surely  it  is  no  way  to  cure  it,  to 
engraft  it  and  spread  it  over  your  whole  body.  That 
is  no  proper  way  of  treating  what  you  regard  a 
wrong.  You  see  this  peaceful  way  of  dealing  with 
it  as  a  wrong, — restricting  the  spread  of  it,  and  not 

25  allowing  it  to  go  into  new  countries  where  it  has  not 
already  existed.  That  is  the  peaceful  way,  the  old- 
fashioned  way,  the  way  in  which  the  fathers  them- 
selves set  us  the  example. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  have  said  there  is  a  senti- 

30  ment  which  treats  it  as  not  being  wrong.  That  is 
the  Democratic  sentiment  of  this  day.  I  do  not  mean 


MR.   LIXCOLS'S  REPLY  195 

to  say  that  every  man  who  stands  within  tliat  range 
positively  asserts  that  it  is  right.  That  class  will 
include  all  who  positively  assert  that  it  is  right,  and 
all  who,  like  Judge  Douglas,  treat  it  as  indifferent, 
and  do  not  say  it  is  either  right  or  wrong.  These  5 
two  classes  of  men  fall  within  the  general  class  of 
those  who  do  not  look  upon  it  as  a  wrong.  And  if 
there  be  among  you  anybody  who  supposes  that  he, 
as  a  Democrat,  can  consider  himself  "  as  much 
opposed  to  slavery  as  anybody,"  I  would  like  to  10 
reason  with  him.  You  never  treat  it  as  a  wrong. 
What  other  thing  that  you  consider  as  a  wrong  do 
you  deal  with  as  you  deal  with  that?  Perhaps  you 
say  it  is  wrong,  but  your  leader  never  does,  and  you 
quarrel  witJi  anybody  zcJio  says  it  is  zirong.  15 
Although  you  pretend  to  say  so  yourself,  you  can 
find  no  fit  place  to  deal  with  it  as  a  wrong.  You 
must  not  say  anything  about  it  in  the  Free  States, 
because  it  is  not  here.  You  must  not  say  anything 
about  it  in  the  Slave  States,  because  it  is  there.  You  20 
must  not  say  anything  about  in  the  pulpit,  because 
that  is  religion,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  You 
must  not  say  anything  about  it  in  politics,  because 
that  zcill  disturb  the  security  of  "  my  place." 
There  is  no  place  to  talk  about  it  as  being  a  wrong,  25 
although  you  say  yourself  it  is  a  wrong.  lUit, 
finally,  you  will  screw  yourself  up  to  the  belief  that 
if  the  people  of  the  Slave  States  should  adopt  a  sys- 
tem of  gradual  emancipation  on  the  slavery  ques- 
tion, you  would  be  in  favor  of  it.  You  would  be  in  3^ 
favor  of  it.     You  say  that  is  getting  it  in  the  right 


196   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

place,  and  you  would  be  glad  to  see  it  succeed.  But 
you  are  deceiving  yourself.  You  all  know  that 
Frank  Blair  and  Gratz  Brown,  down  there  in  St. 
Louis,  undertook  to  introduce  that  system  in  Mis- 
3  souri.  They  fought  as  valiantly  as  they  could  for 
the  system  of  gradual  emancipation  which  you  pre- 
tend you  would  be  glad  to  see  succeed.  Now,  I  will 
bring  you  to  the  test.  After  a  hard  fight  they  were 
beaten,  and  when  the  news  came  over  here,  you 

lo  threw  up  your  hats  and  hurrahed  for  Democracy. 
More  than  that,  take  all  the  argument  made  in  favor 
of  the  system  you  have  proposed,  and  it  carefully 
excludes  the  idea  that  there  is  anything  wrong  in 
the  institution  of  slavery.     The  arguments  to  sustain 

15  that  policy  carefully  excluded  it.  Even  here  to-day 
you  heard  Judge  Douglas  quarrel  with  me  because  I 
uttered  a  wish  that  it  might  some  time  come  to  an 
end.  Although  Henry  Clay  could  say  he  wished 
every  slave  in  the  United  States  was  in  the  country 

20  of  his  ancestors,  I  am  denounced  by  those  pretending 
to  respect  Henry  Clay  for  uttering  a  wish  that  it 
might  some  time,  in  some  peaceful  way,  come  to  an 
end.  The  Democratic  policy  in  regard  to  that  insti- 
tution will  not  tolerate  the  merest  breath,  the  slight- 

25  est  hint,  of  the  least  degree  of  wrong  about  it.  Try 
it  by  some  of  Judge  Douglas's  arguments.  He  says 
he  "  don't  care  whether  it  is  voted  up  or  voted 
down  "  in  the  Territories.  I  do  not  care  myself,  in 
dealing  with  that  expression,  whether  it  is  intended 

3o  to  be  expressive  of  his  individual  sentiments  on  the 
subject,  or  only  of  the  national  policy  he  desires  to 


MR.   LINCOLN'S   REPLY  197 

have  established.  It  is  alike  valuable  for  my  pur- 
pose. Any  man  can  say  that  who  does  not  see  any- 
thing wrong-  in  slavery ;  but  no  man  can  logically 
say  it  who  does  see  a  wrong  in  it,  because  no  man 
can  logically  say  he  don't  care  w'hcthcr  a  wrong  is  5 
voted  up  or  voted  down.  He  may  say  he  don't  care 
whether  an  indifferent  thing  is  voted  up  or  down, 
but  he  must  logically  have  a  choice  between  a  right 
thing  and  a  wrong  thing.  He  contends  that  what- 
ever community  wants  slaves  has  a  right  to  have  10 
them.  So  they  have,  if  it  is  not  a  wrong.  But  if 
it  is  a  wrong,  he  cannot  say  people  have  a  right  to 
do  wrong.  He  says  that  upon  the  score  of  equality, 
slaves  should  be  allowed  to  go  in  a  new  Territory, 
like  other  property.  This  is  strictly  logical  if  there  15 
is  no  difference  between  it  and  other  property.  If  it 
and  other  property  are  equal,  his  argument  is  entirely 
logical.  But  if  you  insist  that  one  is  wrong  and  the 
other  right,  there  is  no  use  to  institute  a  comparison 
between  right  and  wrong.  You  may  turn  over  20 
everything  in  the  Democratic  policy  from  beginning 
to  end,  whether  in  the  shape  it  takes  on  the  statute 
book,  in  the  shape  it  takes  in  the  Dred  Scott  deci- 
sion, in  the  shape  it  takes  in  conversation,  or  the 
shape  it  takes  in  short  maxim-like  arguments, — it  25 
everywhere  carefully  excludes  the  idea  that  thc.e  is 
anything  wrong  in  it. 

That  is  the  real  issue.     That  is  the  issue  that  will 
continue  in  this  country,  when  these  poor  tongues 
of  Judge  Douglas  and  myself  shall  be  silent.     It  is  3© 
^he  eternal  struggle  between  these  two  principles^ 


198   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

right  and  wrong — throughout  the  world.  They  are 
the  two  principles  that  have  stood  face  to  face  from 
the  beginning  of  time,  and  will  ever  continue  to 
struggle.     The  one  is  the  common  right  of  human- 

5  ity,  and  the  other  the  divine  right  of  kings.  It  is 
the  same  principle  in  whatever  shape  it  develops 
itself.  It  is  the  same  spirit  that  says :  "  You  work 
and  toil  and  earn  bread,  and  I'll  eat  it."  No  matter 
in  what  shape  it  comes,  whether  from  the  mouth  of 

lo  a  king  who  seeks  to  bestride  the  people  of  his  own 
nation  and  live  by  the  fruit  of  their  labor,  or  from 
one  race  of  men  as  an  apology  for  enslaving  another 
race,  it  is  the  same  tyrannical  principle.  I  was  glad 
to  express  my  gratitude  at  Quincy,  and  I  re-express 

15  it  here,  to  Judge  Douglas, — that  he  looks  to  no  end 
of  the  institution  of  slavery.  That  will  help  the 
people  to  see  where  the  struggle  really  is.  It  will 
hereafter  place  with  us  all  men  who  really  do  wish 
the  wrong  may  have  an  end.     And  whenever  we  can 

20  get  rid  of  the  fog  which  obscures  the  real  question, 
when  we  can  get  Judge  Douglas  and  his  friends  to 
avow  a  policy  looking  to  its  perpetuation, — we  can 
get  out  from  among  that  class  of  men  and  bring 
them  to  the  side  of  those  who  treat  it  as  a  wrong. 

25  Then  there  will  soon  be  an  end  of  it,  and  that  end 
will  be  its  "  ultimate  extinction."  Whenever  the 
issue  can  be  distinctly  made,  and  all  extraneous  mat- 
ter thrown  out  so  that  men  can  fairly  see  the  real 
difference  between  the  parties,  this  controversy  will 

30  soon  be  settled,  and  it  will  be  done  peaceably,  too. 
There  will  be  no  war,  no  violence.     It  will  be  placed 


MR.   LINCOLN'S  REPLY  199 

a.q'ain  where  the  wisest  and  best  men  of  the  world 
placed  it.  Brooks,  of  South  Carolina,  once  declared 
that  when  this  Constitution  was  framed  its  framers 
did  not  look  to  the  institution  existing  until  his  day. 
When  he  said  this,  I  think  he  stated  a  fact  that  is  5 
fully  borne  out  by  the  history  of  the  times.  But  he 
also  said  they  were  better  and  wiser  men  than  the 
men  of  these  days ;  yet  the  men  of  these  days  had 
experience  which  they  had  not,  and  by  the  inven- 
tion of  the  cotton-gin  it  became  a  necessity  in  this  10 
country  that  slavery  should  be  perpetual.  I  now 
say  that,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  purposely  or  with- 
out purpose.  Judge  Douglas  has  been  the  most 
prominent  instrument  in  changing  the  position  of 
the  institution  of  slavery  which  the  fathers  of  the  15 
government  expected  to  come  to  an  end  ere  this, — 
and  putting  it  upon  Brooks's  cotton-gin  basis; 
placing  it  where  he  openly  confesses  he  has  no 
desire  there  shall  ever  be  an  end  of  it. 

I    understand    I    have   ten   minutes   yet.     I   will  20 
employ  it  in  saying  something  about  this  argument 
Judge   Douglas  uses,   while   he   sustains  the   Dred 
Scott  decision,  that  the  people  of  the  Territories  can 
still   somehow  exclude  slavery.     The  first  thing  I 
ask  attention  to  is  the  fact  that  Judge  Douglas  con-  25 
stantly  said,  before  the  decision,  that  whether  they 
could  or  not,  was  a  question  for  the  Supreme  Court. 
But  after  the  court  had  made  the  decision  he  vir- 
tually  says   it   is  not  a  question   for  the   Supreme 
Court,  but  for  the  people.     And  how  is  it  he  tells  30 
us  they  can  exclude  it?    He  says  it  needs  "police 


2Q0    THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

r^palatifon^"  and  that  admits  of  "unfriendly  legis- 
lation.** Although  it  is  a  right  established  by  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  to  take  a  slave  into 

a  Territofy  of  the  United  Sta: ff   :■.:•.'.  \      I  him  as 

5  property,  yet  unless  the  Territorial  Legislature  will 

^^^   friendly       .:-^-^:.::'     ^:"  :     :  .::    t^:    :;-.._      .: 


they  adopt  unfriendly  le c .  f '  • : . :  r.  : . ; -■-  :  .r.  prac- 
tically exclude  him.  Nov,,  vv::.-:^^;  :;-:.:::  this 
proposition  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  pass  t:       : - r  : er  the 

lo  real  const'-  -"  aal  obligation.  Let  me  i^j^c  uie  gen- 
tiemnan  who  looks  me  in  the  face  before  me,  and  let 
us  suppose  that  he  is  a  member  of  the  Territorial 
Lc~.r.2ttLre.  The  first  thing  he  will  do  will  be  to 
svv  t^r  that  he  will  support  the  Coosdtiitioii  of  the 

>5  United  States.  His  neighbor  by  his  side  in  tiie  Ter- 
ritory has  slaves  and  needs  Territorial  legislation  to 
enable  him  to  enjoy  that  constitutional  right  Can 
he  withhold  the  legislation  which  his  neighbor  needs 
for  the  enjoyment  of  a  right  wbich  is  fixed  in  his 

ao  favor  in  the  Cdnstitiifion  of  the  United  States  whiiii 
he  has  sworn  to  support  ?  Can  he  witUiold  it  with- 
out violating  his  oath?  And,  more  especially,  can 
he  pass  unfriendly  leg*'*?' -.■;."  to  violate  his  oath? 
Why,  this  is  a  nzonstrcuj  i-:.-:  of  talk  aboiLEt  the  Coo- 

25  stttution  of  the  L^nited  States !  There  has  never 
beem  as  outlandish  or  iawiess  a  doctrme  from  the 
mouth  of  any  respectabte  mam  &n  ecrth.  I  do  not 
believe  it  is  a  constitutional  r^^  to  hcdd  slaves  in  a 
Territory  of  the  United  States.     I  bdieve  the  deci- 

30  sion  was  improf)erly  made  and  I  go  for  reversing 
iL    Judge  Douglas  is  furioiis  against  tiiose  who  go 


AIR.  LL\COL.\"S  REPLY  201 

for  reversing  a  decision.  But  he  is  for  legislating 
it  out  of  all  force  while  the  law  itself  stands.  I 
repeat  that  there  has  never  been  so  monstrous  a  doc- 
trine uttered  from  the  mouth  of  a  respectable  man. 

I  suppose  most  of  us  (I  know  it  of  myself)  be-    5 
lieve  that  people  of  the  Southern  States  are  entitled 
to  a  Congressional  Fugitive  Slave  law, — that  is  a 
right  fixed  in  the  Constitution.     But  it  cannot  be 
made  available  to  them  without  Congressional  leg- 
islation.    In  the  Judge's  language,  it  is  a  **  barren   10 
right,"  which  needs  legislation  before  it  can  become 
efficient  and  valuable  to  the  persons  to  whom  it  is 
guaranteed.     And  as  the  right  is  constitutional,  I 
agree  that  the  legislation  shall  be  granted  to  it. — 
and  that  not  that  we  like  the  institution  of  slavery-.    15 
We  profess  to  have  no  taste  for  running  and  catch- 
ing niggers. — at  least,  I  profess  no  taste  for  that 
job  at  all.     Why  then  do  I  yield  support  to  a  Fugi- 
tive Slave  law?     Because  I  do  not  understand  that 
the  Constitution,  which  guarantees  that  right,  can  20 
be  supported  without  it.     And  if  I  believed  that  the 
right  to  hold  a  slave  in  a  Territor}-  was  equally  fixed 
in  the  Constitution  with  the  right  to  reclaim  fugi- 
tives, I  should  be  bound  to  give  it  the  legislation 
necessar>'  to  support  it.     1  say  that  no  man  can  deny   25 
his  obligation  to  give  the  necessary'  legislation  to 
support  slavery-  in  a  Territor>-,  who  believes  it  is  a 
constitutional  right  to  have  it  there.     Xo  man  can, 
who  does  not  give  the  Abolitionists  an  argriment  to 
deny  the  obligation  enjoined  by  the  Constitution  to  30 
enact  a  Fugitive  State  law.     Tr^'  it  now.     It  is  the 


202   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE.  AT  ALTON 

strongest  Abolition  argument  ever  made.  I  say 
if  that  Dred  Scott  decision  is  correct,  then  the  right 
to  hold  slaves  in  a  Territory  is  equally  a  constitu- 
tional right  with  the  right  of  a  slaveholder  to  have 
5  his  runaway  returned.  No  one  can  show  the  dis- 
tinction between  them.  The  one  is  express,  so  that 
we  cannot  deny  it.  The  other  is  construed  to  be  in 
the  Constitution,  so  that  he  who  believes  the  deci- 
sion to  be  correct  believes  in  the  right.     And  the 

lo  man  who  argues  that  by  unfriendly  legislation,  in 
spite  of  that  constitutional  right,  slavery  may  be 
driven  from  the  Territories,  cannot  avoid  furnish- 
ing an  argument  by  which  Abolitionists  may  deny 
the  obligation  to   return   fugitives,   and   claim  the 

15  power  to  pass  laws  unfriendly  to  the  right  of  the 
slaveholder  to  reclaim  his  fugitive.  I  do  not  know 
how  such  an  argument  may  strike  a  popular  assem- 
bly like  this,  but  I  defy  anybody  to  go  before  a  body 
of  men  whose  minds  are  educated  to  estimating  evi- 

20  dence  and  reasoning,  and  show  that  there  is  an  iota 
of  difference  between  the  constitutional  right  to 
reclaim  a  fugitive,  and  the  constitutional  right  to 
hold  a  slave,  in  a  Territory,  provided  this  Dred  Scott 
decision  is  correct.     I  defy  any  man  to  make  an 

25  argument  that  will  justify  unfriendly  legislation  to 
deprive  a  slaveholder  of  his  right  to  hold  a  slave  in 
a  Territory,  that  will  not  equally,  in  all  its  length, 
breadth,  and  thickness,  furnish  an  argument  for  nul- 
lifying the  Fugitive  Slave  law.     Why,  there  is  not 

30  such  an  Abolitionist  in  the  nation  as  Douglas, 
after  all, 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   REJOIXDER  203 


MR.    DOUGLAS'S    REJOIXDER 

Mr.  Lixcolx  has  concluded  his  remarks  by  say- 
inp^  that  there  is  not  such  an  Abohtionist  as  I  am  in  5 
all  America.  If  he  could  make  the  Abolitionists  of 
Illinois  believe  that,  he  would  not  have  much  show 
for  the  Senate.  Let  him  make  the  Abolitionists 
believe  the  truth  of  that  statement,  and  his  political 
back  is  broken.  10 

His  first  criticism  upon  me  is  the  expression  of 
his  hope  that  the  war  of  the  Administration  will  be 
prosecuted  against  me  and  the  Democratic  party  of 
this  State  with  vigor.  He  wants  that  war  prose- 
cuted with  vigor ;  I  have  no  doubt  of  it.  His  hopes  of  15 
success  and  the  hopes  of  his  party  depend  solely  upon 
it.  They  have  no  chance  of  destroying  the  De- 
mocracy of  this  State  except  by  the  aid  of  Federal 
patronage.  He  has  all  the  Federal  office-holders 
here  as  his  allies,  running  separate  tickets  against  the  20 
Democracy  to  divide  the  party,  although  the  leaders 
all  intend  to  vote  directly  the  Abolition  ticket,  and 
only  leave  the  greenhorns  to  vote  this  separate 
ticket  who  refuse  to  go  into  the  Abolition  camp. 
There  is  something  really  refreshing  in  the  thought  25 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  is  in  favor  of  prosecuting  one  war 
vigorously.  It  is  the  first  war  that  I  ever  knew  him 
to  be  in  favor  of  prosecuting.  It  is  the  first  war 
that  I  ever  knew  him  to  believe  to  be  just  or  con- 
stitutional. When  the  Mexican  war  was  being  3^ 
waged,  and  the  American  arniy  was  surrounded  by 


204   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

the  enemy  in  Mexico,  he  thought  that  war  was 
unconstitutional,  unnecessary,  and  unjust.  He 
thought  it  was  not  commenced  on  the  right  spot. 
When  I  made  an  incidental  allusion  of  that  kind  in 
5  the  joint  discussion  over  at  Charleston  some  weeks 
ago,  Lincoln,  in  replying,  said  that  I,  Douglas,  had 
charged  him  with  voting  against  supplies  for  the 
Mexican  war,  and  then  he  reared  up,  full  length, 
and  swore  that  he  never  voted  against  the  supplies ; 

lo  that  it  was  a  slander;  and  caught  hold  of  Ficklin, 
who  sat  on  the  stand,  and  said,  "  Here,  Ficklin,  tell 
the  people  that  it  is  a  lie."  Well,  Ficklin,  who  had 
served  in  Congress  with  him,  stood  up  and  told  them 
all  that  he  recollected  about  it.     It  was  that  when 

15  George  Ashmun,  of  Massachusetts,  brought  for- 
ward a  resolution  declaring  the  war  unconstitutional, 
unnecessary,  and  unjust,  that  Lincoln  had  voted  for 
it.  "  Yes,"  said  Lincoln,  "  I  did."  Thus  he  confessed 
that  he  voted  that  the  war  vv^as  wrong,  that  our 

20  country  was  in  the  wrong,  and  consequently  that  the 
Mexicans  were  in  the  right ;  but  charged  that  I  had 
slandered  him  by  saying  that  he  voted  against  the 
supplies.  I  never  charged  him  with  voting  against 
the  supplies  in  my  life,  because  I  knew  that  he  was 

25  not  in  Congress  when  they  were  voted.  The  war  was 
commenced  on  the  13th  day  of  May,  1846,  and  on 
that  day  we  appropriated  in  Congress  ten  millions 
of  dollars  and  fifty  thousand  men  to  prosecute  it. 
During  the  same  session  we  voted  more  men  and 

30  more  money,  and  at  the  next  session  we  voted  more 
men  and  more  money,  so  that  by  the  tirne  Mr.  Lin- 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  REJOINDER  205 

coin  entered  Congress  we  had  enough  men  and 
enough  money  to  carry  on  the  war,  and  had  no 
occasion  to  vote  for  any  more.  When  he  got  into 
the  House,  being  opposed  to  the  war,  and  not  being 
able  to  stop  the  supplies,  because  they  had  all  gone  5 
forward,  all  he  could  do  was  to  follow  the  lead  of 
Corwin,  and  ])rove  that  the  war  was  not  begun  on 
the  right  si)ot,  and  that  it  was  unconstitutional,  un- 
necessary, and  wrong.  Remember,  too,  that  this  he 
did  after  the  war  had  been  begun.  It  is  one  thing  10 
to  be  opposed  to  the  declaration  of  a  war,  another 
and  very  different  thing  to  take  sides  with  the 
enemy  against  your  own  country  after  the  war  has 
been  commenced.  Our  army  was  in  Mexico  at  the 
time,  many  battles  had  been  fought ;  our  citizens,  15 
who  were  defending  the  honor  of  their  country's 
flag,  were  surrounded  by  the  daggers,  the  guns,  and 
the  poison  of  the  enemy.  Then  it  was  that  Corwin 
made  his  speech  in  which  he  declared  that  the  Amer- 
ican soldiers  ought  to  be  welcomed  by  the  Mexicans  20 
with  bloody  hands  and  hospitable  graves;  then  it 
was  that  Ashmun  and  Lincoln  voted  in  the  House 
of  Representatives  that  the  war  was  unconstitu- 
tional and  unjust;  and  Ashmun's  resolution,  Cor- 
win's  speech,  and  Lincoln's  vote  were  sent  to  Mex-  25 
ico  and  read  at  the  head  of  the  Mexican  army,  to 
prove  to  them  that  there  was  a  Mexican  party  in  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  who  were  doing  all 
in  their  power  to  aid  them.  That  a  man  who  takes 
sides  with  the  common  enemy  against  his  own  30 
country  in  time  of  war  should  rejoice  in  a  war  being 


2o6   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

made  on  me  now,  is  very  natural.  And,  in  my 
opinion,  no  other  kind  of  a  man  would  rejoice  in  it. 
Mr.  Lincoln  has  told  you  a  great  deal  to-day  about 
his  being  an  old  line  Clay  Whig.  Bear  in  mind  that 
5  there  are  a  great  many  old  Clay  Whigs  down  in 
this  region.  It  is  more  agreeable,  therefore,  for  him 
to  talk  about  the  old  Clay  Whig  party  than  it  is  for 
him  to  talk  Abolitionism.  We  did  not  hear  much 
about  the  old  Clay  Whig  party  up  in  the  Abolition 

lo  districts.  How  much  of  an  old  line  Henry  Clay 
Whig  was  he  ?  Have  you  read  General  Singleton's 
speech  at  Jacksonville?  You  know  that  General 
Singleton  was  for  twenty-five  years  the  confidential 
friend  of  Henry  Clay  in  Illinois,  and  he  testified  that 

15  in  1847,  when  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  this 
State  was  in  session,  the  Whig  members  were  in- 
vited to  a  Whig  caucus  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
brother-in-law,  where  Mr.  Lincoln  proposed  to 
throw  Henry  Clay  overboard  and  take  up  General 

20  Taylor  in  his  place,  giving  as  his  reason  that,  if  the 
Whigs  did  not  take  up  General  Taylor,  the  Demo- 
crats would.  Singleton  testifies  that  Lincoln  in  that 
speech  urged  as  another  reason  for  throwing  Henry 
Clay     overboard,     that    the     Whigs     had     fought 

25  long  enough  for  principle,  and  ought  to  begin  to 
fight  for  success.  Singleton  also  testified  that  Lin- 
coln's speech  did  not  have  the  effect  of  cutting 
Clay's  throat,  and  that  he  (Singleton)  and  others 
withdrew  from  the  caucus  in  indignation.     He  fur- 

30  ther  states  that  when  they  got  ;.to  Philadelphia  to 
attend  the  National  Convention  of  the  Whig  party, 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S  RPJOINDER  207 

that  r.incoln  was  there,  the  bitter  and  deadly  enemy 
of  Clay,  and  that  he  tried  to  keep  him  (Sini^leton) 
out  of  the  Convention  because  he  insisted  on  votini^ 
for  Clay,  and  Lincohi  was  determined  to  have  Tay- 
lor. Singleton  says  that  Lincoln  rejoiced  with  very  5 
great  joy  when  he  found  the  mangled  remains  of 
the  murdered  Whig  statesman  lying  cold  before 
him.  Now,  Mr.  Lincoln  tells  you  that  he  is  an  old 
line  Clay  Whig!  General  Singleton  testifies  to  the 
facts  I  have  narrated,  in  a  public  speech  which  has  10 
been  printed  and  circulated  broadcast  over  the  State 
for  weeks,  yet  not  a  lisp  have  we  heard  from  Mr. 
Lincoln  on  the  subject,  except  that  he  is  an  old  Clay 
Whig. 

What  part  of  Henry  Clay's  policy  did  Lincoln  15 
ever  advocate.     He   was   in    Congress   in    1848-9, 
when  the   Wilmot   Proviso   warfare   disturbed   the 
peace  and  harmony  of  the  country,  until  it  shook  the 
foundation  of  the  Republic   from  its  centre  to  its 
circumference.     It  was  that  agitation  that  brought  20 
Clay  forth  from  his  retirement  at  Ashland  again  to 
occupy  his  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
to  see  if  he  could  not,  by  his  great  wisdom  and 
experience,  and  the  renown  of  his  name,  do  some- 
thing to  restore  peace  and  quiet  to  a  disturbed  coun-  25 
try.     Who  got  up  that  sectional  strife  that  Clay  had 
to  be  called  upon  to  quell  ?     I  have  heard  Lincoln 
boast  that  he  voted  forty-two  times  for  the  Wilmot 
Proviso,  and  that  he  would  have  voted  as  many 
times  more  if  he  could.     Lincoln  is  the  man,  in  con-  30 
nection  with  Seward,  Chase,  Giddings,  and  odier 


2o8   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

Abolitionists,  who  got  up  that  strife  that  I  helped 
Clay  to  put  down.  Henry  Clay  came  back  to  the 
Senate  in  1849,  and  saw  that  he  must  do  something 
to  restore  peace  to  the  country.  The  Union  Whigs 
5  and  the  Union  Democrats  welcomed  him,  the 
moment  he  arrived,  as  the  man  for  the  occasion. 
We  believed  that  he,  of  all  men  on  earth,  had  been 
preserved  by  Divine  Providence  to  guide  us  out  of 
our  difficulties,  and  we  Democrats  rallied  under  Clay 

10  then,   as   you   Whigs   in   Nullification   time   rallied 

under  the  banner  of  old  Jackson,  forgetting  party 

when  the  country  was  in  danger,  in  order  that  we 

might  have  a  country  first,  and  parties  afterward. 

And  this  reminds  me  that  Mr.  Lincoln  told  you 

15  that  the  slavery  question  was  the  only  thing  that 
ever  disturbed  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Union. 
Did  not  Nullification  once  raise  its  head  and  disturb 
the  peace  of  this  Union  in  1832?  Was  that  the 
slavery  question,  Mr.  Lincoln?     Did  not  disunion 

20  raise  its  monster  head  during  the  last  war  with 
Great  Britain?  Was  that  the  slavery  question,  Mr. 
Lincoln?  The  peace  of  this  country  has  been  dis- 
turbed three  times,  once  during  the  war  with  Great 
Britain,  once  on  the  tariff  question,  and  once  on  the 

25  slavery  question.  His  argument  therefore  that 
slavery  is  the  only  question  that  has  ever  created  dis- 
sension in  the  Union  falls  to  the  ground.  It  is  true 
that  agitators  are  enabled  now  to  use  this  slavery 
question   for  the   purpose  of  sectional   strife.     He 

30  admits  that  in  regard  to  all  things  else,  the  principle 
that  I  advocate,  making  each  State  and  Territory 


MR.   DOUG  LAS' S-  REJOINDER  209 

free  to  decide  for  itself,  ought  to  prevail.  He 
instances  the  cranberry  laws  and  the  oyster  laws, 
and  he  might  have  gone  through  the  whole  list  with 
the  same  effect.  I  say  that  all  these  laws  are  local 
and  domestic,  and  that  local  and  domestic  concerns  5 
should  be  left  to  each  State  and  each  Territory  to 
manage  for  itself.  If  agitators  would  acquiesce  in 
that  principle,  there  never  would  be  any  danger  to 
the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  Union. 

Mr.   Lincoln   tries   to   avoid   the   main   issue   by  10 
attacking   the   truth    of    my    proposition,    that    our 
fathers  made  this  government  divided  into  Free  and 
Slave  States,  recognizing  the  right  of  each  to  decide 
all  its  local  questions  for  itself.     Did  they  not  thus 
make   it?     It   is   true   that   they   did   not   establish  15 
slavery  in  any  of  the  States,  or  abolish  it  in  any  of 
them ;  but  finding  thirteen  States,  tw'elve  of  which 
were  slave  and  one  free,  they  agreed  to  form  a  gov- 
ernment uniting  them  together  as  they  stood,  divided 
into  Free  and  Slave  States,  and  to  guarantee  forever  20 
to  each  State  the  right  to  do  as  it  pleased  on  the 
slavery  question.     Having  thus  made  the  govern- 
ment, and  conferred  this  right  upon  each  State  for- 
ever, I  assert  that  this  government  can  exist  as  they 
made  it,  divided  into  Free  and  Slave  States,  if  any  25 
one  State  chooses  to  retain  slavery.     He  says  that 
he  looks  forward  to  a  time  when  slavery  shall  be 
abolished  everywhere.     I   look   forward  to  a  time 
when  each  State  shall  be  allowed  to  do  as  it  pleases. 
If  it  chooses  to  keep  slavery  forever,  it  is  not  my  30 
business,  but  its  own ;  if  it  chooses  to  abolish  slay- 


210   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

ery,  it  is  its  own  business, — not  mine.  I  care  more 
for  the  great  principle  of  self-government,  the  right 
of  the  people  to  rule,  than  I  do  for  all  the  negroes 
in   Christendom.     I  would  not  endanger  the   per- 

5  petuity  of  this  Union,  I  would  not  blot  out  the  great 
inalienable  rights  of  the  white  men,  for  all  the 
negroes  that  ever  existed.  Hence,  I  say,  let  us 
maintain  this  government  on  the  principles  that  our 
fathers  made  it  on,  recognizing  the  right  of  each 

lo  State  to  keep  slavery  as  long  as  its  people  determine, 
or  to  abolish  it  when  they  please.  But  Mr.  Lincoln 
says  that  when  our  fathers  made  this  government 
they  did  not  look  forw^ard  to  the  state  of  things  now 
existing,  and  therefore  he  thinks  the  doctrine  was 

15  wrong ;  and  he  quotes  Brooks,  of  South  Carolina,  to 
prove  that-  our  fathers  then  thought  that  probably 
slavery  would  be  abolished  by  each  State  acting  for 
itself  before  this  time.  Suppose  they  did;  suppose 
they  did  not  foresee  what  has  occurred, — does  that 

20  change  the  principles  of  our  government?  They 
did  not  probably  foresee  the  telegraph  that  transmits 
intelligence  by  lightning,  nor  did  they  foresee  the 
railroads  that  now  form  the  bonds  of  union  between 
the   different   States,   or   the   thousand   mechanical 

25  inventions  that  have  elevated  mankind.  But  do 
these  things  change  the  principles  of  the  govern- 
ment? Our  fathers,  I  say,  made  this  government 
on  the  principle  of  the  right  of  each  State  to  do  as 
it  pleases  in  its  own  domestic  affairs,  subject  to  the 

30  Constitution,  and  allowed  the  people  of  each  to 
apply  to  every  new  change  of  circumstances  such 


MR.    DOUGLAS'S   REJOINDER  211 

remedy  as  they  may  sec  fit  to  improve  tlieir  con- 
dition. This  ri,c:ht  they  have  for  all  time  to  come. 
Mr.  Lincoln  went  on  to  tell  you  that  he  does  not 
at  all  desire  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States 
where  it  exists,  nor  does  his  party.  I  expected  him  5 
to  say  that  down  here.  Let  me  ask  him,  then,  how 
he  expects  to  put  slavery  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction  everywhere,  if  he  does  not  intend  to  inter- 
fere with  it  in  the  States  where  it  exists?  He  says 
that  he  will  prohibit  it  in  all  Territories,  and  the  10 
inference  is,  then,  that  unless  they  make  Free  States 
out  of  them  he  will  keep  them  out  of  the  Union  ;  for, 
mark  you,  he  did  not  say  whether  or  not  he  would 
vote  to  admit  Kansas  with  slavery  or  not,  as  her 
people  might  apply  (he  forgot  that,  as  usual,  etc.)  ;  15 
he  did  not  say  whether  or  not  he  was  in  favor  of 
bringing  the  Territories  now  in  existence  into  the 
Union  on  the  principle  of  Clay's  Compromise  Meas- 
ures on  the  slavery  question.  I  told  you  that  he 
would  not.  His  idea  is  that  he  will  prohibit  slavery  20 
in  all  the  Territories,  and  thus  force  them  all  to 
become  Free  States,  surrounding  the  Slave  States 
with  a  cordon  of  Free  States,  and  hemming  them  in, 
keeping  the  slaves  confined  to  their  present  limits 
whilst  they  go  on  multiplying,  until  the  soil  on  25 
which  they  live  will  no  longer  feed  them,  and  he 
will  thus  be  able  to  put  slavery  in  a  course  of  ulti- 
mate extinction  by  starvation.  Lie  will  extinguish 
slavery  in  the  Southern  States  as  the  French  gen- 
eral exterminated  the  Algerines  when  he  smoked  30 
them  out.     He  is  going  to  extinguish  slavery  by 


212    THE  SEVENTH  JOIXT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

surrounding  the  Slave  States,  hemming  in  the  slaves, 
and  starving  them  out  of  existence,  as  you  smoke  a 
fox  out  of  his  hole.  He  intends  to  do  that  in  the 
nam-e  of  humanity  and  Christianity,  in  order  that 

5  we  may  get  rid  of  the  terrible  crime  and  sin  entailed 
upon  our  fathers  of  holding  slaves.  Mr.  Lincoln 
makes  out  that  line  of  policy,  and  appeals  to  the 
moral  sense  of  justice  and  to  the  Christian  feeling 
of  the  community  to  sustain  him.     He  says  that  any 

lo  man  who  holds  to  the  contrary  doctrine  is  in  the 
position  of  the  king  who  claimed  to  govern  by  divine 
right.  Let  us  examine  for  a  moment  and  see  what 
principle  it  was  tnat  overthrew  the  divine  right  of 
George  the  Third  to  govern  us.     Did  not  these  Col- 

15  onies  rebel  because  the  British  Parliament  had  no 
right  to  pass  laws  concerning  our  property  and 
domestic  and  private  institutions  without  our  con- 
sent? We  demanded  that  the  British  Government 
should  not  pass   such   laws   unless   they   gave   us 

20  representation  in  the  body  passing  them ;  and  this 
the  British  Government  insisting  on  doing,  we  went 
to  war,  on  the  prmciple  that  the  Home  Government 
should  not  control  and  govern  distant  colonies  with- 
out giving  them  a  representation.     Now,  Mr.  Lin- 

25  coin  proposes  to  govern  the  Territories  without  giv- 
ing them  a  representation,  and  calls  on  Congress 
to  pass  laws  controlling  their  property  and  domes- 
tic concerns  without  their  consent  and  against  their 
will.     Thus,  he  asserts  for  his  party  the  identical 

30  principle  asserted  by  George  UL  and  the  Tories  of 
the  Revolution, 


MR.   DOUGLAS'S   REJOISDER  213 

I  ask  you  to  look  into  these  thirij:^s  and  then  tell 
me  whether  the  Democracy  or  the  Abolitionists  are 
right.  I  hold  that  the  people  of  a  Territory,  like 
those  of  a  State  (I  use  the  language  of  Mr. 
Buchanan  in  his  Letter  of  Acceptance),  have  the  5 
right  to  decide  for  themselves  whether  slavery  shall 
or  shall  not  exist  within  their  limits.  The  point 
upon  which  Chief  Justice  Taney  expresses  his  opin- 
ion is  simi)ly  this,  that  slaves,  being  property,  stand 
on  an  equal  footing  with  other  property,  and  conse-  10 
quently  that  the  owner  has  the  same  right  to  carry 
that  property  into  a  Territory  that  he  has  any  other, 
subject  to  the  same  conditions.  Suppose  that  one 
of  your  merchants  was  to  take  fifty  or  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars'  worth  of  liquors  to  Kansas.  He  15 
has  a  right  to  go  there,  under  that  decision ;  but 
when  he  gets  there  he  finds  the  ]\Iaine  liquor  law  in 
force,  and  what  can  he  do  with  his  property  after 
he  gets  it  there  ?  He  cannot  sell  it,  he  cannot  use  it ; 
it  is  subject  to  the  local  law,  and  that  law  is  against  20 
him,  and  the  best  thing  he  can  do  with  it  is  to  bring 
it  back  into  Missouri  or  Illinois  and  sell  it.  If  you 
take  negroes  to  Kansas,  as  Colonel  Jefferson  Davis 
said  in  his  Bangor  speech,  from  which  I  have  quoted 
to-day,  you  must  take  them  there  subject  to  the  25 
local  law.  If  the  people  want  the  institution  of 
slavery,  they  will  protect  and  encourage  it ;  but  if 
they  do  not  want  it  they  will  withhold  that 
protection,  and  the  absence  of  local  legislation  pro- 
tecting slavery  excludes  it  as  completely  as  a  30 
positive  prohibition.      You  slaveholders  of  Missouri 


214   THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

might  as  well  understand  what  you  know  practi- 
cally, that  you  cannot  carry  slavery  where  the  peo- 
ple do  not  want  it.  All  you  have  a  right  to  ask  is 
that  the  people  shall  do  as  they  please :  if  they  want 
5  slavery,  let  them  have  it;  if  they  do  not  want  it, 
allow  them  to  refuse  to  encourage  it. 

My  friends,  if,  as  I  have  said  before,  we  will  only 
live  up  to  this  great  fundamental  principle,  there 
will  be  peace  between  the   North  and  the   South. 

xo  Mr.  Lincoln  admits  that,  under  the  Constitution,  on 
all  domestic  questions,  except  slavery,  we  ought  not 
to  interfere  with  the  people  of  each  State.  What 
right  have  we  to  interfere  with  the  people  of  each 
State.     What  right  have  we  to  interfere  with  slav- 

15  ery  any  more  than  we  have  to  interfere  with  any 
other  question?  He  says  that  this  slavery  question 
is  now  the  bone  of  contention.  Why?  Simply 
because  agitators  have  combined  in  all  the  Free 
States  to  make  war  upon  it.     Suppose  the  agitators 

20  in  the  States  should  combine  in  one  half  of  the 
Union  to  make  war  upon  the  railroad  system  of  the 
other  half  ?  They  would  thus  be  driven  to  the  same 
sectional  strife.  Suppose  one  section  makes  war 
upon  any  other  particular  institution  of  the  opposite 

25  section,  and  the  same  strife  is  produced.  The  only 
remedy  and  safety  is  that  we  shall  stand  by  the  Con- 
stitution as  our  fathers  made  it,  obey  the  laws  as 
they  are  passed,  while  they  stand  the  proper  test, 
and  sustain  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  and 

3o  the  constituted  authorities. 


Xlncoln'0  HC^Drc^a  at  Cooper  Unetltute 

[February  2T,  i860] 

Mr.  President  and  Fellow-citizens  of  New 
York  :  The  facts  with  which  I  shall  deal  this  even- 
ing are  mainly  old  and  familiar ;  nor  is  there  any-  5 
thins:;-  new  in  the  general  use  I  shall  make  of  them. 
If  there  shall  be  any  novelty,  it  will  be  in  the  mode 
of  presenting-  the  facts,  and  the  inferences  and  obser- 
vations following  that  presentation.  In  his  speech 
last  Autumn  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  as  reported  in  the  10 
New  York  "  Times,"  Senator  Douglas  said : 

"  Our  fathers,  when  they  framed  the  government 
under  which  we  live,  understood  this  question  just  as 
well,  and  even  better,  than  we  do  now." 

I  fully  indorse  this,  and  I  adopt  it  as  a  text  for  15 
this  discourse.  I  so  adopt  it  because  it  furnishes 
a  precise  and  an  agreed  starting-point  for  a  dis- 
cussion between  Republicans  and  that  wing  of  the 
Democracy  headed  by  Senator  Douglas.  It  simply 
leaves  the  inquiry:  What  was  the  understanding  20 
those  fathers  had  of  the  question  mentioned? 

What  is  the  frame  of  government  under  which 
we  live?  The  answer  must  be,  '*  The  Constitution 
of  the  United  States."  That  Constitution  consists 
of  the  original,  framed  in  1787,  and  under  which  the   25 

215 


2i6         LINCOLN   AT   COOPER  INSTITUTE 

present  government  first  went  into  operation,  and 
twelve  subsequently  framed  amendments,  the  first 
ten  of  which  were  framed  in  1789. 

Who  were  our  fathers  that  framed  the  Constitu- 
5  tion  ?  I  suppose  the  ''  thirty-nine  "  who  signed  the 
original  instrument  may  be  fairly  called  our  fathers 
who  framed  that  part  of  the  present  government. 
It  is  almost  exactly  true  to  say  they  framed  it,  and 
it  is  altogether  true  to  say  they  fairly  represented 

10  the  opinion  and  sentiment  of  the  whole  nation  at 
that  time.  Their  names,  being  familiar  to  nearly 
all,  and  accessible  to  quite  all,  need  not  now  be 
repeated. 

I  take  these  "  thirty-nine,"   for  the  present,  as 

15   being  ''  our   fathers   who   framed   the   government 

under  which  we  live."     What  is  the  question  which, 

according   to   the   text,    those    fathers    understood 

"  just  as  well,  and  even  better,  than  we  do  now  "? 

It  is  this:   Does  the  proper  division  of  local  from 

20  Federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution, 
forbid  our  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to 
slavery  in  our  Federal  Territories? 

Upon  this,  Senator  Douglas  holds  the  affirmative, 
and  Republicans  the  negative.     This  affirmation  and 

25  denial  form  an  issue ;  and  this  issue — this  question — 
is  precisely  what  the  text  declares  our  fathers  under- 
stood "better  than  w^e."  Let  us  now  inquire 
whether  the  "  thirty-nine,"  or  any  of  them,  ever 
acted  upon  this  question ;  and  if  they  did,  how  they 

30  acted  upon  it — how  they  expressed  that  better 
understanding.    In  1784,  three  years  before  the  Con- 


LINCOLN  AT   COOPER  INSTITUTE         217 

stitution,  the  United  States  then  owning  the  North- 
western Territory,  and  no  other,  the  Congress  of 
the  Confederation  had  before  them  the  question 
of  prohibiting  slavery  in  that  Territory,  and  four  of 
the  *'  thirty-nine  "  who  afterward  framed  the  Con-  5 
stitution  were  in  that  Congress,  and  voted  on  that 
question.  Of  these,  Roger  Sherman,  Thomas  Mif- 
flin, and  Hugh  Wilhamson  voted  for  the  prohibition, 
thus  showing  that,  in  their  understanding,  no  hue 
dividing  local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  lo 
else,  properly  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to 
control  as  to  slavery  in  Federal  territory.  The  other 
of  the  four,  James  IMcIIenry,  voted  against  the  pro- 
hibition, showing  that  for  some  cause  he  thought 
it  improper  to  vote  for  it.  15 

In  1787,  still  before  the  Constitution,  but  while 
the  convention  was  in  session  framing  it,  and  while 
the  Northwestern  Territory  still  was  the  only  Terri- 
tory owned  by  the  United  States,  the  same  question 
of  prohibiting  slavery  in  the  Territor}-  again  came  20 
before  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation ;  and  two 
more  of  the  "  thirty-nine  "  who  afterward  signed  the 
Constitution  were  in  that  Congress,  and  voted  on  the 
question.  They  were  William  Blount  and  William 
Few ;  and  they  both  voted  for  the  prohibition — thus  25 
showing  that  in  their  understanding  no  line  dividing 
local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  else, 
properly  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control 
as  to  slavery  in  Federal  territory.  This  time  the 
prohibition  became  a  law,  being  part  of  what  is  now  3^ 
well  known  as  the  Ordinance  of  '87. 


2iS         LINCOLN  AT   COOPER  INSTITUTE 

The  question  of  Federal  control  of  slavery  in  the 
Territories  seems  not  to  have  been  directly  before 
the  convention  which  framed  the  original  Constitu- 
tion; and  hence  it  is  not  recorded  that  the  "thirty- 
5  nine,"  or  any  of  them,  while  engaged  on  that  instru- 
ment, expressed  any  opinion  on  that  precise  question. 
In  1789,  by  the  first  Congress  which  sat  under  the 
Constitution,  an  act  w^as  passed  to  enforce  the  ordi- 
nance of  '87,  including  the  prohibition  of  slavery  in 

10  the  Northwestern  Territorv.  The  bill  for  this  act 
was  reported  by  one  of  the  "  thirty-nine  " — Thomas 
Fitzsimmons,  then  a  member  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives from  Pennsylvania.  It  went  through 
all  its  stages   without  a  word  of  opposition,   and 

15  finally  passed  both  branches  without  ayes  and  nays, 
which  is  equivalent  to  a  unanimous  passage.  In 
this  Congress  there  were  sixteen  of  the  thirty-nine 
fathers  who  framed  the  original  Constitution.  They 
were   John    Langdon,    Nicholas    Oilman,    Wm.    S. 

20  Johnson,  Roger  Sherman,  Robert  Morris,  Thos. 
Fitzsimmons,  William  Few,  Abraham  Baldwin, 
Rufus  King,  William  Patterson,  George  Clymer, 
Richard  Bassett,  George  Read,  Pierce  Butler,  Dan- 
iel Carroll,  and  James  Madison. 

25  This  shows  that,  in  their  understanding,  no  line 
dividing  local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything 
in  the  Constitution,  properly  forbade  Congress  to 
prohibit  slavery  in  the  Federal  territory ;  else  both 
their  fidelity  to  correct  principle,  and  their  oath  to 

30  support  the  Constitution,  would  have  constrained 
them  to  oppose  the  prohibition. 


LINCOLN  AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE         219 

Ap^ain,  Gcorj^^e  Washington,  another  of  the 
**  thirty-nine,"  was  then  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  as  such  ai)proved  and  sip^ncd  the  hill, 
thus  completing  its  validity  as  a  law,  and  thus  show- 
ing that,  in  his  understanding,  no  line  dividing  local  5 
from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  in  the  Con- 
stitution, forhade  the  Federal  Government  to  con- 
trol as  to  slavery  in  Federal  territory. 

No  great  while  after  the  adoption  of  the  original 
Constitution,  North  Carolina  ceded  to  the  Federal   10 
Government  the  country  now  constituting  the  State 
of  Tennessee ;  and  a  few  years  later  Georgia  ceded 
that  which  now  constitutes  the  States  of  ^Mississippi 
and   Alabama.     In   both   deeds   of   cession   it   was 
made  a  condition  by  the  ceding  States  that  the  Fed-   15 
eral  government  should  not  prohibit  slavery  in  the 
ceded  country.     Besides  this,  slavery  was  then  actu- 
ally  in   the   ceded   country.     Under  these   circum- 
stances.   Congress,    on    taking    charge    of    these 
countries,  did  not  absolutely  prohibit  slavery  within   20 
them.     But  they   did  interfere   with   it — take   con- 
trol of  it — even  there,  to  a  certain  extent.     In  1798 
Congress   organized   the   Territory   of   Mississippi. 
In    the    act    of    organization    they    prohibited  the 
bringing  of  slaves  into  the  Territory  from  any  place   25 
without  the  United  States,  by  fine,  and  giving  free- 
dom to  slaves  so  brought.     This  act  passed  both 
branches  of  Congress  without  yeas  and  nays.     In 
that  Congress  were  three  of  the  *'  thirty-nine  "  who 
framed  the  original  Constitution.     They  were  John    3° 
Langdon,    George    Read,    and    Abraham    Baldwin. 


220         LINCOLN  AT   COOPER  INSTITUTE 

They  all  probably  voted  for  it.  Certainly  they 
would  have  placed  their  opposition  to  it  upon  record 
if,  in  their  understanding,  any  line  dividing  local 
from  Federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Consti- 
5  tution,  properly  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to 
control  as  to  slavery  in  Federal  Territory. 

In  1803  the  Federal  Government  purchased  the 
Louisiana  countr}\  Our  former  territorial  acquisi- 
tions came  from  certain  of  our  own  States;  but 
10  this  Louisiana  country  was  acquired  from  a  for- 
eign nation.  In  1804  Congress  gave  a  territorial 
organization  to  that  part  of  it  which  now  constitutes 
the  State  of  Louisiana.  New  Orleans,  lying  within 
that  part,  was  an  old  and  comparatively  large  city. 
15  There  were  other  considerable  towns  and  settle- 
ments and  slavery  was  extensively  and  thoroughly 
intermingled  with  the  people.  Congress  did  not, 
in  the  Territorial  Act,  prohibit  slavery;  but  they 
did  interfere  with  it — ^take  control  of  it — in  a  more 
20  marked  and  extensive  ^^'ay  than  they  did  in  the  case 
of  Mississippi.  The  substance  of  the  provision 
therein  made  in  relation  to  slaves  was : 

1st.     That  no  slave  should  be  imported  into  the 
Territory  from  foreign  parts. 
25       2d.     That  no  slave  should  be  carried  into  it  who 
had  been  imported  into  the  United  States  since  the 
first  day  of  May,  1798. 

3d.     That   no   slave   should   be   carried   into   it, 
except  by  the  owner,  and  for  his  own  use  as  a  set- 
So  tier;  the  penalty  in  all  cases  being  a  fine  upon  the 
violator  of  the  law,  and  freedom  to  the  slave. 


LINCOLN  AT   COOPER  INSTITUTE         221 

This  act  also  was  passed  without  ayes  or  nays. 
In  the  Congress  which  passed  it  there  were  two  of 
the  "  thirty-nine."  They  were  Abraham  Baldwin 
and  Jonathan  Dayton.  As  stated  in  the  case  of 
Mississippi,  it  is  probable  they  both  voted  for  it.  5 
They  would  not  have  allowed  it  to  pass  without 
recording  their  opposition  to  it  if,  in  their  under- 
standing, it  violated  either  the  line  properly  dividing 
local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any  provision  of 
the  Constitution.  10 

In  1819-20  came  and  passed  the  Missouri  ques- 
tion. Many  votes  were  taken,  by  yeas  and  nays,  in 
both  branches  of  Congress,  upon  the  various  phases 
of  the  general  question.  Two  of  the  "  thirty-nine  " 
— Rufus  King  and  Charles  Pinckncy — were  mem-  15 
bers  of  that  Congress.  Mr.  King  steadily  voted  for 
slavery  prohibition  and  against  all  compromises, 
while  Mr.  Pinckncy  as  steadily  voted  against  slav- 
ery prohibition  and  against  all  compromises.  By 
this,  Mr.  King  showed  that,  in  his  understanding,  20 
no  line  dividing  local  from  Federal  authority,  nor 
anything  in  the  Constitution,  was  violated  by  Con- 
gress prohibiting  slavery  in  Federal  territory ; 
while  Mr.  Pinckney,  by  his  votes,  showed  that,  in 
his  understanding,  there  was  some  sufficient  reason  25 
for  opposing  such  prohibition  in  that  case. 

The  cases  I  have  mentioned  are  the  only  acts  of 
the  "  thirty-nine,"  or  of  any  of  them,  upon  the 
direct  issue,  which  I  have  been  able  to  discover. 

To   enumerate   the   persons   who   thus   acted   as  3° 
being  four  in  1784,  two  in  1787,  seventeen  in  1789, 


222         LINCOLN  AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE 

three  in  1798,  two  in  1804,  and  two  in  1819-20, 
there  would  be  thirty  of  them.  But  this  would  be 
counting  John  Langdon,  Roger  Sherman,  William 
Few,  Rufus  King,  and  George  Read  each  twice, 

5  and  Abraham  Baldwin  three  times.  The  true  num- 
ber of  those  of  the  "  thirty-nine "  whom  I  have 
shown  to  have  acted  upon  the  question  which,  by 
the  text,  they  understood  better  than  we,  is  twenty- 
three,  leaving  sixteen  not  shown  to  have  acted  upon 

10  it  in  any  way. 

Here,  then,  we  have  twenty-three  out  of  our 
thirty-nine  fathers  "who  framed  the  government 
under  which  we  live,"  who  have,  upon  their  official 
responsibility  and  their  corporal  oaths,  acted  upon 

15  the  very  question  which  the  text  affirms  they 
"  understood  just  as  well,  and  even  better,  than  we 
do  now  " ;  and  twenty-one  of  them— a  clear  majority 
of  the  whole  '*  thirty-nine  " — so  acting  upon  it  as 
to  make  them  guilty  of  gross  political  impropriety 

20  and  wilful  perjury  if,  in  their  understanding,  any 
proper  division  between  local  and  Federal  authority, 
or  anything  in  the  Constitution  they  had  made 
themselves,  and  sworn  to  support,  forbade  the  Fed- 
eral Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the 

25  Federal  Territories.  Thus  the  twenty-one  acted; 
and,  as  actions  speak  louder  than  words,  so  actions 
under  such  responsibility  speak  still  louder. 

Two  of  the  twenty-three  voted  against  Congres- 
sional prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Federal  Terri- 

30  tories,  in  the  instances  in  which  they  acted  upon 
the  question.     But  for  what  reasons  they  so  voted 


LINCOLN   AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE         223 

is  not  known.  They  may  have  done  so  because  they 
thoii£]^ht  a  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal 
authority,  or  some  provision  or  principle  of  the 
Constitution,  stood  in  the  way ;  or  they  may,  with- 
out any  such  question,  have  voted  against  the  pro-  5 
hibition  on  what  appeared  to  them  to  be.  sufficient 
grounds  of  expediency.  No  one  who  has  sworn  to 
support  the  Constitution  can  conscientiously  vote 
for  what  he  understands  to  be  an  unconstitutional 
measure,  however  expedient  he  may  think  it ;  but  10 
one  may  and  ought  to  vote  against  a  measure  which 
he  deems  constitutional  if,  at  the  same  time,  he 
deems  it  inexpedient.  It,  therefore,  would  be 
unsafe  to  set  down  even  the  two  who  voted  against 
the  prohibition  as  having  done  so  because,  in  their  15 
understanding,  any  proper  division  of  local  from 
Federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution, 
forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to 
slavery  in  Federal  territory. 

The  remaining  sixteen  of  the  "  thirty-nine,"  so  20 
far  as  I  have  discovered,  have  left  no  record  of 
their  understanding  upon  the  direct  question  of  Fed- 
eral control  of  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories. 
But  there  is  much  reason  to  believe  that  their  under- 
standing upon  that  question  would  not  have  25 
appeared  different  from  that  of  their  twenty-three 
compeers,  had  it  been  manifested  at  all. 

For  the  purpose  of  adhering  rigidly  to  the  text, 
I  have  purposely  omitted  whatever  understanding 
may  have  been  manifested  by  any  person,  however  30 
distinguished,  other  than  the  thirtv-nine  fathers  who 


224         LINCOLN  AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE 

framed  the  original  Constitution ;  and,  for  the  same 
reason,  I  have  also  omitted  whatever  understanding 
may  have  been  manifested  by  any  of  the  "  thirty- 
nine  "  even  on  any  other  phase  of  the  general  ques- 
5  tion  of  slaverv'.  If  we  should  look  into  their  acts 
and  declarations  on  those  other  phases,  as  the 
foreign  slave-trade,  and  the  morality  and  policy  of 
slavery  genperally,  it  would  appear  to  us  that  on  the 
direct   question   of   Federal   control   of   slavery   in 

lo  Federal  Territories,  the  sixteen,  if  they  had  acted 
at  all,  would  probably  have  acted  just  as  the  twenty- 
three  did.  Among  that  sixteen  were  several  of  the 
most  noted  anti-slavery  men  of  those  times — as  Dr. 
Franklin,    Alexander    Hamilton-,    and    Gouverneur 

15  Alorris — while  there  was  not  one  now  known  to 
have  been  otherwise,  unless  it  may  be  John  Rut- 
ledge,  of  South-  Carolina. 

The  sum  of  the  whole  is  that  of  our  thirty-nine 
fathers    who     framed    the    original     Constitution, 

20  twenty-one — a  clear  majority  of  the  whole — cer- 
tainly understood  that  no  proper  division  of  local 
from  Federal  authority,  nor  any  part  of  the  Con- 
stitution, forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  con- 
trol  slaver}'  in   the   Federal   Territories ;   while   all 

25  the  rest  had  probably  the  same  understanding. 
Such,  unquestionably,  was  the  understanding  of  our 
fathers  who  framed  the  original  Constitution;  and 
the  text  affirms  that  they  understood  the  question 
"  better  than  we." 

3°  But,  so  far,  I  have  been  considering  the  under- 
standing of  the  question  manifested  by  the  framers 


LIXCOLN   AT   COOPER   IXSTITUTE         225 

of  the  original  Constitution.  In  and  by  the  original 
instrument,  a  mode  was  provided  for  amencHng  it ; 
and,  as  I  have  already  stated,  the  present  frame  of 
*'  the  government  under  whieh  we  live  "  consists  of 
that  original,  and  twelve  amendatory  articles  framed  5 
and  adopted  since.  Those  who  now  insist  that  Fed- 
eral control  of  slavery  in  Federal  Territories  vio- 
lates the  Constitution,  point  us  to  the  provisions 
which  they  suppose  it  thus  violates ;  and,  as  I  under- 
stand, they  all  fix  upon  provisions  in  these  amenda-  10 
tory  articles,  and  not  in  the  original  instrument. 
The  Supreme  Court,  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  plant 
themselves  upon  the  fifth  amendment,  which  pro- 
vides that  no  person  shall  be  deprived  of  "  life,  lib- 
erty, or  property  without  due  process  of  law  " ;  while  15 
Senator  Douglas  and  his  peculiar  adherents  plant 
themselves  upon  the  tenth  amendment,  providing 
that  "  the  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States 
by  the  Constitution  "  "  are  reserved  to  the  States 
respectively,  or  to   the  people."  20 

Now  it  so  happens  that  these  amendments  were 
framed  by  the  first  Congress  which  sat  under  the 
Constitution — the  identical  Congress  which  passed 
the  act,  already  mentioned,  enforcing  the  prohibition 
of  slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Territory.  Not  only  25 
was  it  the  same  Congress,  but  they  were  the  iden- 
tical, same  individual  men  who,  at  the  same  session, 
and  at  the  same  time  within  the  session,  had  under 
consideration,  and  in  progress  toward  maturity,  these 
constitutional  amendments,  and  this  act  prohibiting  30 
slavery  in  all  the  territory  the  nation  then  owned. 


226         LINCOLN  AT   COOPER  INSTITUTE 

» 
The    constitutional    amendments    were    introduced 

before,  and  passed  after  the  act  enforcing  the  ordi- 
nance of  '87;  so  that,  during  the  whole  pendency  of 
the  act  to  enforce  the  ordinance,  the  constitutional 
5  amendments  were  also  pending. 

The  seventy-six  members  of  that  Congress,  includ- 
ing sixteen  of  the  framers  of  the  original  Constitu- 
tion, as  before  stated,  were  pre-eminently  our 
fathers  who  framed  that  part  of  "  the  government 

10  under  which  we  live  "  which  is  now  claimed  as  for- 
bidding the  Federal  Government  to  control  slavery 
in  the  Federal  Territories. 

Is  it  not  a  little  presumptuous  in  anyone  at  this 
dav  to  affirm  that  the  two  thing^s  which  that  Con- 

15  gress  deliberately  framed,  and  carried  to  maturity 
at  the  same  time,  are  absolutely  inconsistent  with 
each  other?  And  does  not  such  affirmation  become 
impudently  absurd  when  coupled  with  the  other 
affirmation,  from  the  same  mouth,  that  those  who 

20  did  the  two  things  alleged  to  be  inconsistent,  under- 
stood whether  they  really  were  inconsistent  better 
than  we — better  than  he  who  affirms  that  they  are 
inconsistent  ? 

It  is  surely  safe  to  assume  that  the  thirty-nine 

^5  framers  of  the  original  Constitution,  and  the  sev- 
enty-six members  of  the  Congress  which  framed  the 
amendments  thereto,  taken  together,  do  certainly 
include  those  who  may  be  fairly  called  "  our  fathers 
who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live." 

30  And  so  assuming,  I  defy  any  man  to  show  that  any 
one  of  them  ever^  in  his  whole  life,  declared  that,  in 


LINCOLN   AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE         227 

his  understanding,  any  proper  division  of  local  from 
Federal  authority,  or  any  part  of  the  Constitution, 
forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to 
slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories.  I  go  a  step  fur- 
ther. I  defy  anyone  to  show  that  any  living  man  5 
in  the  world  ever  did,  prior  to  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century  (and  I  might  almost  say  prior  to 
the  beginning  of  the  last  half  of  the  present  cen- 
tury), declare  that,  in  his  understanding,  any  proper 
division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any  part  10 
of  the  Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the  Federal  Terri- 
tories. To  those  who  now  so  declare  I  give  not 
only  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  government 
under  which  we  live,"  but  with  them  all  other  living  15 
men  within  the  century  in  which  it  was  framed, 
among  whom  to  search,  and  they  shall  not  be  able 
to  find  the  evidence  of  a  single  man  agreeing  with 
them. 

Now,  and  here,  let  me  guard  a  little  against  being  20 
misunderstood.     I  do  not  mean  to  say  we  are  bound 
to   follow   implicitly   in   whatever   our   fathers   did. 
To  do  so  would  be  to  discard  all  the  lights  of  cur- 
rent experience — to  reject  all  progress,  all  improve- 
ment.    What  I  do  say  is  that  if  we  would  supplant  25 
the  opinions  and  policy  of  our  fathers  in  any  case, 
we  should  do  so  upon  evidence  so  conclusive,  and 
argument  so  clear,  that  even  their  great  authority, 
fairly  considered  and  weighed,  cannot  stand ;  and 
most  surely   not   in   a   case   whereof   we   ourselves  30 
declare  they  understood  the  question  better  than  we. 


228         LINCOLN  AT  COOPER  INSTITUTE 

If  any  man  at  this  day  sincerely  believes  that  a 
proper  division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or 
any  part  of  the  Constitution,  forbids  the  Federal 
Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the  Federal 
5  Territories,  he  is  right  to  say  so,  and  to  enforce  his 
position  by  all  truthful  evidence  and  fair  argu- 
ment which  he  can.  But  he  has  no  right  to  mislead 
others,  who  have  less  access  to  history,  and  less 
leisure  to  study  it,  into  the  false  belief  that  "  our 

lo  fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which 
we  live  "  were  of  the  same  opinion — thus  substitut- 
ing falsehood  and  deception  for  truthful  evidence 
and  fair  argument.  If  any  man  at  this  day  sincerely 
believes  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  government 

^5  under  which  we  live  "  used  and  applied  principles, 
in  other  cases,  which  ought  to  have  led  them  to 
understand  that  a  proper  division  of  local  from 
Federal  authority,  or  some  part  of  the  Constitution, 
forbids  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to 

20  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories,  he  is  right  to 
say  so.  But  he  should,  at  the  same  time,  brave  the 
responsibility  of  declaring  that,  in  his  opinion,  he 
understands  their  principles  better  than  they  did 
themselves ;  and  especially  should  he  not  shirk  that 

25  responsibility  by  asserting  that  they  "  understood 
the  question  just  as  well,  and  even  better,  than  we 
do  now." 

But   enough !     Let   all   who   believe   that   "  our 
fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which 

30  w^e  live  understood  this  question  just  as  well,  and 
even  better,  than  we  do  now,"  speak  as  they  spoke, 


LINCOLN  AT   COOPER  INSTITUTE        229 

and  act  as  they  acted  upon  it.  This  is  all  Repub- 
hcans  ask — all  Republicans  desire — in  relation  to 
slavery.  As  those  fathers  marked  it,  so  let  it  be 
again  marked,  as  an  evil  not  to  be  extended,  but  to 
be  tolerated  ana  protected  only  because  of  and  so  5 
far  as  its  actual  presence  amongst  us  makes  that  tol- 
eration and  protection  a  necessity.  Let  all  the 
guaranties  those  fathers  gave  it  be  not  grudgingly, 
but  fully  and  fairly  maintained.  For  this  Repub- 
licans contend,  and  with  this,  so  far  as  I  know  or  10 
believe,  they  will  be  content. 

And  now,  if  they  would  listen — as  I  suppose  they 
will  not — I  would  address  a  few  words  to  the 
Southern  people. 

I  would  say  to  them :  You  consider  yourselves  a   15 
reasonable  and  a  just  people ;  and  I  consider  that  in 
the  general  qualities  of  reason  and  justice  you  are 
not  inf<erior  to  any  other  people.     Still,  when  you 
sjxak    of    us    Republicans,    you    do "  so    only    to 
denounce  us  as  reptiles,  or,  at  the  best,  as  no  better  20 
than  outlaws.     You  will  grant  a  hearing  to  pirates 
or  murderers,  but  nothing  like  it  to  "  Black  Repub- 
licans."    In  all  your  contentions  with  one  another, 
each  of  you  deems  an  unconditional  condemnation 
of  **  Black  Republicanism,"  as  the  first  thing  to  be   25 
attended    to.     Indeed,    such    condemnation    of    us 
seems  to  be  an  indispensable  prerequisite — license, 
so  to  speak — among  you  to  be  admitted  or  permitted 
to  speak  at  all.     Now  can  you  or  not  be  prevailed 
upon  to  pause  and  to  consider  whether  this  is  quite   30 
just  to  us,  or  even  to  yourselves?     Bring  forward 


230         LINCOLN  AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE 

your  charges  and  specifications,  and  then  be  patient 
long  enough  to  hear  us  deny  or  justify. 

You  say  we  ar€  sectional.     We  deny  it.     That 
makes  an  issue;  and  the  burden  of  proof  is  upon 

5  you.  You  produce  your  proof;  and  what  is  it? 
Why,  that  our  party  has  no  existence  in  your  sec- 
tion— gets  no  votes  in  your  section.  The  fact  is 
substantially  true ;  but  does  it  prove  the  issue  ?  If 
it  does,  then  in  case  we  should,  without  change  of 

lo  principle,  begin  to  get  votes  in  your  section,  we 
should  thereby  cease  to  be  sectional.  You  cannot 
escape  this  conclusion ;  and  yet,  are  you  willing  to 
abide  by  it?  If  you  are,  you  will  probably  soon 
find  that  we  have  ceased  to  be  sectional,  for  we  shall 

15  get  votes  in  your  section  this  very  year.  You  will 
then  begin  to  discover,  as  the  truth  plainly  is,  that 
your  proof  does  not  touch  the  issue.  The  fact  that 
we  get  no  votes  in  your  section  is  a  fact  of  your 
making,  and  not  of  ours.     And  if  there  be  fault  in 

20  that  fact,  that  fault  is  primarily  yours,  and  remains 
so  until  you  show  that  we  repel  you  by  some  wrong 
principle  or  practice.  If  we  do  repel  you  by  any 
wrong  principle  or  practice,  the  fault  is  ours;  but 
this  brings  you  to  where  you  ought  to  have  started 

25  — to  a  discussion  of  the  right  or  wrong  of  our 
principle.  If  our  principle,  put  in  practice,  would 
wrong  your  section  for  the  benefit  of  ours,  or  for 
any  other  object,  then  our  principle,  and  we  with  it, 
are  sectional,  and  are  justly  opposed  and  denounced 

30  as  such.  Meet  us,  then,  on  the  question  of  whether 
our  principle,  put  in  practice,  would  wrong  your 


LINCOLN   AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE         231 

section;  and  so  meet  us  as  if  it  were  possible  that 
something  may  be  said  on  your  side.  Do  you  accept 
the  challenge?  No!  Then  you  really  believe  that 
the  principle  which  ''  our  fathers  who  framed  the 
government  under  which  we  live  "  thought  so  5 
clearly  right  as  to  adopt  it,  and  indorse  it  again  and 
again,  upon  their  official  oaths,  is  in  fact  so  clearly 
wrong  as  to  demand  your  condemnation  without  a 
moment's  consideration. 

Some  of  you  delight  to  flaunt  in  our  faces  the   10 
warning  against  sectional  parties  given  by  Wash- 
ington in  his  Farewell  Address.     Less  than  eight 
years   before   Washington    g?ve   that   warning,    he 
had,  as  President  of  the  United  States,  approved  and 
signed  an  act  of  Congress  enforcing  the  prohibition    15 
of  slavery   in   the    Northwestern   Territory,    which 
act  embodied  the  policy  of  the  government  upon 
that   subject   up   to   and   at   the   very   moment   he 
penned  that  w-arning ;  and  about  one  year  after  he 
penned  it,  he  wTote  Lafayette  that  he  considered  that   20 
prohibition  a  wise  measure,  expressing  in  the  same 
connection  his  hope  that  we  should  at  some  time 
have  a  confederacy  of  free  States. 

Bearing  this  in  mind,  and  seeing  that  sectional- 
ism has  since  arisen  upon  this  same  subject,  is  that  25 
warning  a  weapon  in  your  hands  against  us,  or  in 
our  hands  against  you?  Could  Washington  him- 
self speak,  would  he  cast  the  blame  of  that  section- 
alism upon  us,  who  sustain  his  policy,  or  upon  you, 
who  repudiate  it?  We  respect  that  warning  of  3° 
Washington,  and  we  commend  it  to  you,  together 


ZZ2         LINCOLN  AT   COOPER  INSTITUTE 

with  his  example  pointing  to  the  right  application 
of  it. 

But  you  say  you  are  conservative — eminently 
conservative — while  we  are  revolutionary,  destruc- 
5  tive,  or  something  of  the  sort.  What  is  conserva- 
tism? Is  it  not  adherence  to  the  old  and  tried, 
against  the  new  and  untried?  We  stick  to,  con- 
tend for,  the  identical  old  policy  on  the  point  in  con- 
troversy which  was  adopted  by  "  our  fathers  who 

lo  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live " ; 
while  you  with  one  accord  reject,  and  scout,  and  spit 
upon  that  old  policy,  and  insist  upon  substituting 
something  new.  True,  you  disagree  among  your- 
selves as  to  what  that  substitute  shall  be.     You  are 

15  divided  on  new  propositions  and  plans,  but  you  are 
unanimous  in  rejecting  and  denouncing  the  old 
policy  of  the  fathers.  Some  of  you  are  for  reviving 
the  foreign  slave-trade;  some  for  a  Congressional 
slave  code  for  the  Territories ;  some  for  Congress 

20  forbidding  the  Territories  to  prohibit  slavery  within 
their  limits;  some  for  maintaining  slavery  in  the 
Territories  through  the  judiciary;  some  for  the 
"  gur-reat  pur-rinciple  "  that  "  if  one  man  would 
enslave  another,  no  third  man  should  object,"  fan- 

25  tastically  called  "  popular  sovereignty,"  but  never  a 
man  among  you  is  in  favor  of  Federal  prohibition 
of  slavery  in  Federal  Territories,  according  to  the 
practice  of  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  govern- 
ment under  which  we  live."     Not  one  of  all  your 

30  various  plans  can  show  a  precedent  or  an  advocate 
in  the  century  within  which  our  government  origi- 


LINCOLN  AT   COOPER  INSTITUTE         233 

nated.  Consider,  then,  whether  your  claim  of  con- 
servatism for  yourselves,  and  your  charge  of 
destructiveness  against  us,  are  based  on  the  most 
clear  and  stable  foundations. 

Again,  you  say  we  have  made  the  slavery  ques-    5 
tion   more   prominent  than   it   formerly  was.     We 
deny  it.     We  admit  that  it  is  more  prominent,  but 
we  deny  that  we  made  it  so.     It  was  not  we,  but  you, 
who  discarded  the  old  policy  of  the  fathers.     We 
resisted,  and  still  resist,  your  innovation ;  and  thence   10 
comes    the    greater    prominence    of    the    question. 
Would  you  have  that  question  reduced  to  its  former 
proportions?     Go  back  to  that  old  policy.     What 
has  been  will  be  again,  under  the  same  conditions.  If 
you  would  have  the  peace  of  tiie  old  times,  re-adopt   15 
the  precepts  and  policy  of  the  old  times. 

You  charge  that  we  stir  up  insurrections  among 
your  slaves.     We  deny  it;  and  what  is  your  proof? 
Harper's  Ferry !   John  Brown !  !     John  Brown  was 
no  Republican ;  and  you  have  failed  to  implicate  a   20 
single  Republican  in  his  Harper's  Ferry  enterprise. 
If  any  member  of  our  party  is  guilty  in  that  matter, 
you  know  it  or  you  do  not  know  it.     If  you  do 
know  it,  you  are  inexcusable  for  not  designating 
the  man  and  proving  the  fact.     If  you  do  not  know  25 
it,  you  are  inexcusable  for  asserting  it,  and  espe- 
cially for  persisting  in  the  assertion  after  you  have 
tried  and  failed  to  make  the  proof.     You  need  not 
be    told    that    persisting    in    a    charge    which    one 
does    not    know    to    be    true,    is    simply    malicious  30 
slander. 


^34    LINCOLN  AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE 

Some  of  you  admit  that  no  Republican  designedly 
aided  or  encouraged  the  Harper's  Ferry  affair,  but 
still  insist  that  our  doctrines  and  declarations  nec- 
essarily lead  to  such  results.     We  do  not  believe  it. 

5  We  know  we  hold  no  doctrine,  and  make  no  declara- 
tion, which  were  not  held  to  and  made  by  ''  our 
fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which 
we  live."  You  never  dealt  fairly  by  us  in  relation 
to  this  affair.     When  it  occurred,  some  important 

JO  State  elections  were  near  at  hand,  and  you  were  in 
evident  glee  with  the  belief  that,  by  charging  the 
blame  upon  us,  you  could  get  an  advantage  of  us 
in  those  elections.  The  elections  came,  and  your 
expectations     were     not     quite     fulfilled.     Every 

15  Republican  man  knew  that,  as  to  himself  at  least, 
your  charge  was  a  slander,  and  he  was  not  much 
inclined  by  it  to  cast  his  vote  in  your  favor.  Repub- 
lican doctrines  and  declarations  are  accompanied 
wdth  a  continual  protest  against  any  interference 

20  whatever  with  your  slaves,  or  with  you  about  your 
slaves.  Surely,  this  does  not  encourage  them  to 
revolt.  True,  we  do,  in  common  with  "  our  fathers 
who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live," 
declare  our  beHef  that  slavery  is  wrong;  but  the 

25  slaves  do  not  hear  us  declare  even  this.  For  any- 
thing we  say  or  do,  the  slaves  would  scarcely  know 
there  is  a  Republican  party.  I  believe  they  would 
not,  in  fact,  generally  know  it  but  for  your  misrep- 
resentations of  us  in  their  hearing.     In  your  polit- 

jo  ical  contests  among  yourselves  each  faction  charges 
the  other  with  sympathy  with  Black  Republicanism ; 


LINCOLN   AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE         235 

and  then,  to  give  point  to  the  charge,  defines  Black 
RepubHcanism  to  simply  be  insurrection,  blood,  and 
thunder  among  the  slaves. 

Slave  insurrections  are  no  more  common  now 
than  they  were  before  the  Republican  party  was  5 
organized.  What  induced  the  Southampton  insur- 
rection, twenty-eight  years  ago,  in  which  at  least 
three  times  as  many  lives  were  lost  as  at  Harper's 
Ferry?  You  can  scarcely  stretch  your  very  elastic 
fancy  to  the  conclusion  that  Southampton  was  "  got  10 
up  by  Black  Republicanism."  In  the  present  state 
of  things  in  the  United  States,  I  do  not  think  a 
general,  or  even  a  very  extensive,  slave  insurrec- 
tion is  possible.  The  indispensable  concert  of 
action  cannot  be  attained.  The  slaves  have  no  15 
means  of  rapid  communication ;  nor  can  incendiary 
freemen,  black  or  white,  supply  it.  The  explosive 
materials  are  everywhere  in  parcels ;  but  there 
neither  are,  nor  can  be  supplied,  the  indispensable 
connecting  trains.  20 

Much  is  said  by  Southern  people  about  the  aflfec- 
tion  of  slaves  for  their  masters  and  mistresses ;  and 
a  part  of  it,  at  least,  is  true.  A  plot  for  an  upris- 
ing could  scarcely  be  devised  and  communicated  to 
twenty  individuals  before  some  one  of  them,  to  save  25 
tlie  life  of  a  favorite  master  or  mistress,  would 
divulge  it.  This  is  the  rule ;  and  the  slave  revolu- 
tion in  Hayti  was  not  an  exception  to  it,  but  a  case 
occurring  under  peculiar  circumstances.  The  gun- 
powder plot  of  British  history,  though  not  connected  30 
with  slaves,  was  more  in  point.     In  that  case,  only 


236        LINCOLN  AT  COOPER  INSTITUTE 

about  twenty  were  admitted  to  the  secret;  and  yet 
one  of  them,  in  his  anxiety  to  save  a  friend  betrayed 
the  plot  to  that  friend,  and,  by  consequence,  averted 
the    calamity.     Occasional    poisonings     from    the 

5  kitchen,  and  open  or  stealthy  assassinations  in  the 
field,  and  local  revolts  extending  to  a  score  or  so, 
will  continue  to  occur  as  the  natural  results  of  slav- 
ery ;  but  no  general  insurrection  of  slaves,  as  I  think, 
can  happen  in  this  country  for  a  long  time.     Who- 

lo  ever  much  fears,  or  much  hopes,  for  such  an  event, 
will  be  alike  disappointed. 

In  the  language  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  uttered  many 
years  ago,  "  It  is  still  in  our  power  to  direct  the  pro- 
cess of  emancipation  and  deportation  peaceably,  and 

15  in  such  slow  degrees,  as  that  the  evil  will  wear  off 
insensibly ;  and  their  places  be,  pari  passu,  filled  up 
by  free  white  laborers.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
left  to  force  itself  on,  human  nature  must  shudder 
at  the  prospect  held  up." 

20  Mr.  Jefferson  did  not  mean  to  say,  nor  do  I,  that 
the  power  of  emancipation  is  in  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment. He  spoke  of  Virginia;  and,  as  to  the 
power  of  emancipation,  I  speak  of  the  slaveholding 
States  only.     The  Federal  Government,  however,  as 

25  we  insist,  has  the  power  of  restraining  the  exten- 
sion of  the  institution — the  power  to  insure  that  a 
slave  insurrection  shall  never  occur  on  any  Ameri- 
can soil  which  is  now  free  from  slavery. 

John  Brown's  effort  was  peculiar.     It  was  not  a 

30  slave  insurrection.  It  was  an  attempt  by  white  men 
to  get  up  a  revolt  among  slaves,  in  which  th«  slaves 


LINCOLN  AT   COOPER  INSTITUTE         237 

refused  to  participate.  In  fact,  it  was  so  absurd 
that  the  slaves,  with  all  their  ignorance,  saw  plainly 
enough  it  could  not  succeed.  That  affair,  in  its 
philosophy,  corresponds  with  the  many  attempts, 
related  in  history,  at  the  assassination  of  kings  and  5 
emperors.  An  enthusiast  broods  over  the  oppres- 
sion of  a  people  till  he  fancies  himself  commissioned 
by  Heaven  to  liberate  them.  He  ventures  the 
attempt,  which  ends  in  little  else  than  his  own  execu- 
tion. Orsini's  attempt  on  Louis  Napoleon,  and  10 
John  Brown's  attempt  at  Harper's  Ferry,  were,  in 
their  philosophy,  precisely  the  same.  The  eager- 
ness to  cast  blame  on  old  England  in  the  one  case, 
and  on  New  England  in  the  other,  does  not  dis- 
prove the  sameness  of  the  two  things.  15 

And  how  much  would  it  avail  you,  if  you  could 
by  the*  use  of  John  Brown,  Helper's  book,  and 
the  like,  break  up  the  Republican  organization? 
Human  action  can  be  modified  to  some  extent,  but 
human  nature  cannot  be  changed.  There  is  a  judg-  20 
ment  and  a  feeling  against  slavery  in  this  nation, 
which  cast  at  least  a  million  and  a  half  of  votes.  You 
cannot  destroy  that  judgment  and  feeling — that  sen- 
timent— by  breaking  up  the  political  organization 
which  rallies  around  it.  You  can  scarcely  scatter  25 
and  disperse  an  army  which  has  been  formed  into 
order  in  the  face  of  your  heaviest  fire ;  but  if  you 
could,  how  much  would  you  gain  by  forcing  the 
sentiment  which  created  it  out  of  the  peaceful  chan- 
nel of  the  ballot-box  into  some  other  channel?  ,0 
What    would    that    other    channel    probably    be? 


238         LINCOLN  AT   COOPER  INSTITUTE 

Would  the  number  of  John  Browns  be  lessened  or 
enlarged  by  the  operation? 

But  you  will  break  up  the  Union  rather  than  sub- 
mit to  a  denial  of  your  constitutional  rights. 
5  That  has  a  somewhat  reckless  sound ;  but  it  would 
be  palliated,  if  not  fully  justified,  were  we  propos- 
ing, by  the  mere  force  of  numbers,  to  deprive  you 
of  some  right  plainly  written  down  in  the  Consti- 
tution.    But  we  are  proposing  no  such  thing. 

lo  When  you  make  these  declarations  you  have  a 
specific  and  well-understood  allusion  to  an  assumed 
constitutional  right  of  yours  to  take  slaves  into  the 
Federal  Territories,  and  to  hold  them  there  as  prop- 
erty.    But  no  such  right  is  specially  written  in    the 

15  Constitution.  That  instrument  is  literally  silent 
about  any  such  right.  We,  on  the  contrary,  deny 
that  such  a  right  has  any  existence  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, even  by  implication. 

Your  purpose,  then,  plainly  stated,  is  that  you  will 

20  destroy  the  government,  unless  you  be  allowed  to 
construe  and  force  the  Constitution  as  you  please, 
on  all  points  in  dispute  between  you  and  us.  You 
will  rule  or  ruin  in  all  events. 

This,  plainly  stated,  is  your  language.     Perhaps 

25  you  will  say  the  Supreme  Court  has  decided  the  dis- 
puted constitutional  question  in  your  favor.  Not 
quite  so.  But  waiving  the  lawyer's  distinction 
between  dictum  and  decision  the  court  has  decided 
the    question    for    you    in    a    sort    of    way.     The 

30  court  has  substantially  said,  it  is  your  constitutional 
right  to  take  slaves  into  the  Federal  Territories,  and 


LINCOLN   .IT   COOPER   INSTITUTE         239 

to  hold  tlicni  there  as  property.  When  I  say  tlic 
decision  was  made  in  a  sort  of  way,  I  mean  it 
was  made  in  a  (Hvided  court,  by  a  bare  majority 
of  the  judges,  and  they  not  quite  agreeing  with 
one  another  in  the  reasons  for  making  it ;  that  5 
it  is  so  made  as  that  its  avowed  supporters  disagree 
with  one  another  about  its  meaning,  and  that  it  was 
mainly  based  upon  a  mistaken  statement  of  fact — 
the  statement  in  the  opinion  that  *'  the  right  of  prop- 
erty in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  10 
in  the  Constitution." 

An  inspection  of  the  Constitution  will  show  that 
the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  not  "  distinctly 
and  expressly  affimied  "  in  it.  Bear  in  mind,  the 
judges  do  not  pledge  their  judicial  opinion  that  such  15 
right  is  impliedly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution ;  but 
they  pledge  their  veracity  that  it  is  "  distinctly  and 
expressly "  affirmed  there — ''  distinctly,"  that  is, 
not  mingled  with  anything  else — "  expressly,"  that 
is,  in  words  meaning  just  that,  without  the  aid  of  20 
any  inference,  and  susceptible  of  no  other  meaning. 

If  they  had  only  pledged  their  judicial  opinion  that 
such  right  is  affirmed  in  the  instrument  by  implica- 
tion, it  would  be  open  to  others  to  show  that  neither 
the  word  "  slave  "  nor  ''  slavery  "  is  to  be  found  in  25 
the  Constitution,  nor  the  word  "  property  "  even, 
in  any  connection  with  language  alluding  to  the 
thing  slave,  or  slavery ;  and  that  wherever  in  that 
instrument  the  slave  is  alluded  to,  he  is  called  a 
"  person  " ;  and  wherever  his  master's  legal  right  in  30 
relation  to  him  is  alluded  to,  it  is  spoken  of  as  *'  ser- 


238         LINCOLN   AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE 

Would  the  number  of  John  Browns  be  lessened  or 
enlarged  by  the  operation? 

But  you  will  break  up  the  Union  rather  than  sub- 
mit to  a  denial  of  your  constitutional  rights. 
5  That  has  a  somewhat  reckless  sound ;  but  it  would 
be  palliated,  if  not  fully  justified,  were  we  propos- 
ing, by  the  mere  force  of  numbers,  to  deprive  you 
of  some  right  plainly  written  down  in  the  Consti- 
tution.    But  we  are  proposing  no  such  thing. 

lo  When  you  make  these  declarations  you  have  a 
specific  and  well-understood  allusion  to  an  assumed 
constitutional  right  of  yours  to  take  slaves  into  the 
Federal  Territories,  and  to  hold  them  there  as  prop- 
erty.    But  no  such  right  is  specially  written  in    the 

^5  Constitution.  That  instrument  is  literallv  silent 
about  any  such  right.  We,  on  the  contrary,  deny 
that  such  a  right  has  any  existence  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, even  by  implication. 

Your  purpose,  then,  plainly  stated,  is  that  you  will 

2o  destroy  the  government,  unless  you  be  allowed  to 
construe  and  force  the  Constitution  as  you  please, 
on  all  points  in  dispute  between  you  and  us.  You 
will  rule  or  ruin  in  all  events. 

This,  plainly  stated,  is  your  language.     Perhaps 

25  you  will  say  the  Supreme  Court  has  decided  the  dis- 
puted constitutional  question  in  your  favor.  Not 
quite  so.  But  waiving  the  lawyer's  distinction 
between  dictum  and  decision  the  court  has  decided 
the    question    for    you    in    a    sort    of    way.     The 

30  court  has  substantially  said,  it  is  your  constitutional 
right  to  take  slaves  into  the  Federal  Territories,  and 


LIXCOLX   AT   COOPER   IXSTITVTE         239 

to  hold  them  there  as  property.  When  I  say  the 
decision  was  made  in  a  sort  of  way,  I  mean  it 
was  made  in  a  (hvided  court,  hy  a  bare  majority 
of  the  jud^^es,  and  they  not  quite  agreein.c:  with 
one  another  in  the  reasons  for  making  it ;  that  5 
it  is  so  made  as  that  its  avowed  supporters  cHsagrec 
with  one  another  about  its  meaning;",  and  that  it  was 
mainly  based  upon  a  mistaken  statement  of  fact — 
the  statement  in  the  opinion  that  "  the  right  of  prop- 
erty in  a  slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  10 
in  the  Constitution." 

An  inspection  of  the  Constitution  will  show  that 
the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  not  "  distinctly 
and  expressly  affinned  "  in  it.  Bear  in  mind,  the 
judges  do  not  pledge  their  judicial  opinion  that  such  15 
right  is  impliedly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution ;  but 
they  pledge  their  veracity  that  it  is  ''  distinctly  and 
expressly "  affirmed  there — "  distinctly,"  that  is, 
nut  mingled  with  anything  else — "  expressly,"  that 
is,  in  words  meaning  just  that,  without  the  aid  of  20 
any  inference,  and  susceptible  of  no  other  meaning. 

If  they  had  only  pledged  their  judicial  opinion  that 
such  right  is  affirmed  in  the  instrument  by  implica- 
tion, it  would  be  open  to  others  to  show  that  neither 
the  word  "  slave  "  nor  "  slavery  "  is  to  be  found  in  25 
the  Constitution,  nor  the  word  ''  property  "  even, 
in  any  connection  with  language  alluding  to  the 
thing  slave,  or  slavery;  and  that  wherever  in  that 
instrument  the  slave  is  alluded  to,  he  is  called  a 
"  person  " ;  and  wherever  his  master's  legal  right  in  30 
relation  to  him  is  alluded  to,  it  is  spoken  of  as  "  ser- 


242         LINCOLN  AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE 

yet  this  total  abstaining  does  not  exempt  us  from 
the  charge  and  the  denunciation. 

The  question  recurs,  What  will  satisfy  them? 
Simply  this :  we  must  not  only  let  them  alone,  but 
5  we  must  somehow  convince  them  that  we  do  let 
them  alone.  This,  we  know  by  experience,  is  no 
easy  task.  We  have  been  so  trying  to  convince 
them  from  the  very  beginning  of  our  organization, 
but   virith  no   success.     In   all   our   platforms   and 

lo  speeches  we  have  constantly  protested  our  purpose 
to  let  them  alone;  but  this  has  had  no  tendency  to 
convince  them.  Alike  unavailing  to  convince  them 
is  the  fact  that  they  have  never  detected  a  man  of 
us  in  any  attempt  to  disturb  them. 

15  These  natural  and  apparently  adequate  means  all 
failing,  what  will  convince  them?  This,  and  this 
only:  cease  to  call  slavery  wrong,  and  join  them  in 
calling  it  right.  And  this  must  be  done  thoroughly 
— done  in  acts  as  well  as  in  words.     Silence  will 

20  not  be  tolerated — we  must  place  ourselves  avow- 
edly with  them.  Senator  Douglas's  new  sedition 
law  must  be  enacted  and  enforced,  suppressing  all 
declarations  that  slavery  is  wrong,  whether  made  in 
politics,  in  presses,  in  pulpits,  or  in  private.     We 

25  must  arrest  and  return  their  fugitive  slaves  with 
greedy  pleasure.  We  must  pull  down  our  free- 
State  constitutions.  The  whole  atmosphere  must 
be  disinfected  from  all  taint  of  opposition  to  slav- 
er}%  before  they  will  cease  to  believe  that  all  their 

30  troubles  proceed  from  us. 

I  am  quite  aware  they  do  not  state  their  case  pre- 


LINCOLN   AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE         243 

cisely  in  this  way.  Most  of  them  would  probably 
say  to  us,  "  Let  us  alone ;  do  nothinp^  to  us,  and  say 
what  you  please  about  slavery."  But  we  do  let 
them  alone — have  never  disturbed  them — so  that, 
after  all,  it  is  what  we  say  which  dissatisfies  them.  5 
They  will  continue  to  accuse  us  of  doing,  until  we 
cease  saying. 

I  am  also  aware  they  have  not  as  yet  in  terms 
demanded  the  overthrow  of  our  free-State  consti- 
tutions.    Yet  those  constitutions  declare  the  wrong   10 
of  slavery  with  more  solemn  emphasis  than  do  all 
other  sayings  against  it ;  and  when  all  these  other 
sayings  shall  have  been  silenced,  the  overthrow  of 
these  constitutions  will  be  demanded,  and  nothing 
be  left  to  resist  the  demand.     It  is  nothing  to  the   15 
contrary  that  they  do  not  demand  the  whole  of  this 
just  now.     Demanding  what  they  do,  and  for  the 
reason  they  do,  they  can  voluntarily  stop  nowhere 
short  of  this  consummation.     Holding,  as  they  do, 
that  slavery  is  morally  right  and  socially  elevating,   20 
they  cannot  cease  to  demand  a  full  national  recog- 
nition of  it  as  a  legal  right  and  a  social  blessing. 

Nor  can  we  justifiably  withhold  this  on  any 
ground  save  our  conviction  that  slavery  is  wrong. 
If  slavery  is  right,  all  words,  acts,  laws,  and  con-  25 
stitutions  against  it  are  themselves  wrong,  and 
should  be  silenced  and  swept  away.  If  it  is  right, 
we  cannot  justly  object  to  its  nationality — its  uni- 
versality ;  if  it  is  wrong,  they  cannot  justly  insist 
upon  its  extension — its  enlargement.  All  they  ask  3^ 
we  could  readily  grant,  if  we  thought  slavery  right; 


244         LINCOLN  AT   COOPER   INSTITUTE 

all  we  ask  they  could  as  readily  grant,  if  they 
thought  it  wrong.  Their  thinking  it  right  and  our 
thinking  it  wrong  is  the  precise  fact  upon  which 
depends  the  whole  controversy.  Thinking  it  right, 
5  as  they  do,  they  are  not  to  blame  for  desiring  its  full 
recognition  as  being  right;  but  thinking  it  wrong, 
as  we  do,  can  we  yield  to  them?  Can  we  cast  our 
votes  with  their  view,  and  against  our  own?  In 
view  of  our  moral,  social,  and  political  responsi- 

lo  bilities,  can  we  do  this? 

.Wrong  as  we  think  slavery  is,  we  can  yet  afford 
to  let  it  alone  where  it  is,  because  that  much  is  due 
to  the  necessity  arising  from  its  actual  presence  in 
the  nation;  but  can  we,  while  our  votes  will  pre- 

15  vent  it,  allow  it  to  spread  into  the  national  Terri- 
tories, and  to  overrun  us  here  in  these  free  States? 
If  our  sense  of  duty  forbids  this,  then  let  us  stand 
by  our  duty  fearlessly  and  effectively.  Let  us  be 
diverted  by  none  of  those  sophistical  contrivances 

20  wherewith  we  are  so  industriously  plied  and  bela- 
bored— contrivances  such  as  groping  for  some  mid- 
dle ground  between  the  right  and  the  wrong:  vain 
as  the  search  for  a  man  who  should  be  neither  a 
living  man  nor  a  dead  man;  such  as  a  policy  of 

25  "  don't  care  "  on  a  question  about  which  all  true  men 
do  care;  such  as  Union  appeals  beseeching  true 
Union  men  to  yield  to  Disunionists,  reversing  the 
divine  rule,  and  calling,  not  the  sinners,  but  the 
righteous    to   repentance ;    such    as   invocations   to 

30  Washington,  imploring  men  to  unsay  what  Wash- 
ington said  and  undo  what  Washington  did. 


LINCOLN  AT   COOPER  INSTITUTE         245 

Neither  let  us  be  slandered  from  (3ur  duty  by 
false  accusations  against  us,  nor  frightened  from  it 
by  menaces  of  destruction  to  the  government,  nor 
of  dungeons  to  ourselves.  Let  us  have  faith  that 
right  makes  might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us  to  the 
end  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we  understand  it. 


NOTES 

THE    SPRINGFIELD    SPEECH 
June   i6,   1858 

On  the  evening  after  he  had  received  from  the 
Republican  State  Convention  its  unanimous  nomina- 
tion for  tfte  United  States  Senatorship,  Mr.  Lincoln 
opened  his  campaign  with  this  address.  Because  of  its 
deliberate  preparation  and  the  radical  character  of  some 
of  its  doctrines,  it  became  the  cardinal  statement  of 
the  Republican  position  in  the  campaign  of  1858,  and 
the  center  of  the  most  bitter  attack  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
opponents.  Indeed  its  utterance  may  be  said  to  have 
marked  the  beginning  of  the  final  phase  of  the  anti- 
slavery  agitation  which  culminated  in  the  War  of  the 
Rebellion.  It  had  as  much  to  do  as  any  other  single 
utterance  with  Lincoln's  ultimate  rise  to  national 
leadership. 

1:12.  I  believe  this  government  cannot  endure  per- 
manently half  slave  and  half  free. — We  can  now  appre- 
ciate with  difficulty  the  sensation  produced  first 
throughout  the  state  of  Illinois,  and  later  throughout 
the  entire  country  by  the  first  paragraph  of  this 
address  containing  the  famous  allusion  to  the  '*  house 
divided  against  itself."  To  the  conservative  friends 
of  slavery  and  of  freedom  alike,  it  seemed  a  deliberate 
incitement  to  sectional  strife.  "  At  the  North,  nine 
men  out  of  ten,"  says  J.  T.  Morse  (Life  of  Lin- 
coln, vol.  i.  p.  115),  "cared  less  for  any  principle, 
moral  or  political,  than  they  did  for  the  discovery  of 
some  course  whereby  this  unwelcome  conflict  between 
slavery    and    freedom    could    be    prevented    from    dis- 

247 


248  NOTES 

organizing  the  course  of  daily  business."  Mr.  Lincoln's 
words,  therefore,  were  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign 
the  delight  of  his  political  enemies  and  the  dismay  of 
his  friends.     But  in  his  judgment  the  time  was  ripe. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  as  Republican  leader  of  his  state,  had 
been  led  for  some  time  to  expect  his  nomination.  His 
entire  address  of  acceptance  was  prepared  beforehand 
with  the  utmost  care.  When  it  was  complete,  Mr. 
Lincoln  read  it  for  criticism  to  his  law  partner,  Mr. 
William  H.  Herndon.  After  the  words  "A  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand,"  Herndon,  who  was 
an  abolitionist,  remarked,  "  It  is  true,  but  is  it  politic 
to  say  so?"  Lincoln  replied:  "The  proposition  is 
true  and  has  been  for  six  thousand  years.  I  want  to 
use  some  universally  known  figure  expressed  in  simple 
language,  as  universally  well  known,  that  may  strike 
home  to  the  minds  of  men  in  order  to  raise  them  up  to 
the  peril  of  the  times." 

Reading  the  address  later  before  a  group  of  a  dozen 
friends,  he  asked  each  for  his  opinion.  Only  one 
endorsed  it;  one  characterized  it  as  "  ahead  of  its 
time " ;  another  as  a  "  fool  utteranc-e."  The  con- 
servative vote  it  was  urged  would  be  alienated.  But 
Herndon,  who  was  of  the  number,  exclaimed,  "  Lin- 
coln, deliver  that  speech  as  read,  and  it  will  make  you 
President."  To  his  critics  Lincoln  replied,  "  Friends, 
this  thing  has  been  retarded  long  enough.  The  time 
has  come  when  these  sentiments  should  be  uttered; 
and  if  it  is  decreed  that  I  should  go  down  because  of 
this  speech,  then  let  me  go  down  linked  to  the  truth — 
let  me  die  in  the  advocacy  of  what  is  just  and  right." 

The  nobility  of  such  language  is  manifest  when  we 
consider  Lincoln's  intense  ambition  for  the  Senator- 
ship,  the  uncertain  strength  of  the  anti-slavery  senti- 
ment in  the  state,  and  the  fact  that  he  knew  he  was 
leading  his  party  into  unknown  paths.  The  joy  with 
which    the    doctrine    of    this    opening    paragraph    was 


NOTES  249 

received  by  Lincoln's  opponents  is  revealed  by  Senator 
Douglas's  incessant  attacks  upon  it  throughout  the 
debates, 

2:  15.  The  new  year  of  1854  found  slavery  excluded. 
— When  Taylor  was  elected  president  in  1848,  slavery 
was  sanctioned  by  law  in  fifteen  Southern  states  and 
the  District  of  Columbia.  It  was  prohibited  by  law  in 
fifteen  Northern  states.  The  admission  of  Californir. 
in  1850  as  a  free  state  gave  the  North  an  advantage  in 
all  matters  of  national  legislation.  Morever  by  the 
provisions  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  slavery  was 
excluded  from  all  national  territory  north  of  lat.  36°  30'. 

2:18.  Four  days  later  commenced  the  struggle. — 
Senator  Douglas  introduced  the  Nebraska  Bill  on  Jan. 
4,  1854. 

3:2.  If  any  one  man  choose  to  enslave  another. — • 
This  paraphrase  of  Douglas's  doctrine  of  popular 
sovereignty  is  a  happy  instance  of  Lincoln's  power  to 
sum  up  a  political  issue  in  a  homely  and  telling 
aphorism.  For  further  explanation  of  the  doctrine 
see  the  Debates,  and  the  Introduction,  p.  xxiii. 

3:15.  "But,"  said  opposition  members,  "let  us 
amend  the  bill." — Sen.  Salmon  P.  Chase  of  Ohio  led  the 
opposition  to  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill.  By  various 
means,  including  this  amendment  which  is  discussed  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  Freeport  debate  beginning  on  p.  26, 
and  subsequently  by  Mr.  Douglas,  beginning  p.  36.  Sen- 
ator Chase  sought  to  render  distinct  the  division 
between  the  slavery  and  anti-slavery  forces  in  the 
Senate. 

4:4.  Senator  Trumbull. — Lyman  Trumbull  (1813-96), 
a  conspicuous  figure  in  this  campaign,  had  been  a  judge 
of  the  Supreme  Court  in  Illinois,  and  was  from  1854- 
72  a  Senator,  representing  his  state  in  the  national 
Senate.  He  was  in  this  campaign  a  supporter  of  Lin- 
coln— perhaps   his   most   powerful    rtne. 

4:  10.     Mr.    Buchanan    was    elected. — By    the    popular 


\i 


250  NOTES 

vote,  James  Buchanan,  Democrat,  received  1.838.169 
votes;  John  C-  Fremont,  Republican,  1.341,264;  and  Mil- 
lard Fillmore,  representing  the  Know-Nothings  and 
Whigs,  received  874,534.  Buchanan  succeeded  Franklin 
Pierce. 

4:22.  The  reputed  author  of  the  Nebraska  bill. — 
i.e.  Senator  Douglas. 

4:31.  The  Silliman  letter.— A  document  addressed 
to  President  Buchanan  in  1856  by  the  "'  electors  of  the 
State  of  Connecticut,"  with  Prof.  Silliman  of  Yale 
University  as  its  chief  author,  relative  to  the  state  of 
affairs  in  Kansas.  In  his  reply  the  President  cites  the 
Dred  Scott  decision  as  proving  that  slavery  existed  in 
Kansas  Territory  with  the  sanction  of  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States. 

5:6.  The  Lecompton  Constitution.— For  a  discus- 
sion, see  the  Introduction,  p.  xxxii. 

5: 10.  He  cares  not  whether  slavery  be  voted  down 
or  voted  up, — This  declaration  of  Senator  Douglas  was 
made  in  a  speech  on  the  Lecompton  scheme,  Dec.  9, 
1857,  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  The  quota- 
tion was  used  with  great  effect  by  Lincoln  throughout 
the  campaign.  The  indifference  of  Douglas  to  the 
moral  aspect  of  slavery  was  the  ultimate  cause  of  his 
political   downfall, 

8:17.  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  Franklin  Pierce,  Roger 
B.  Taney,  James  Buchanan. — The  charge,  which  Lin- 
coln has  now  completely  insinuated,  is  that  President 
Pierce,  his  successor.  President  Buchanan,  Chief  Justice 
Taney  and  Senator  Douglas,  leader  of  the  Democratic 
party  in  the  Senate,  were  in  collusion  for  the  further- 
ance of  a  policy  whereby  slavery  was  to  be  national- 
ized. This  was  a  matter  of  general  belief  among 
Republicans  at  the  time. 

A  specific  charge  relative  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision 
had  recently  been  made  by  William  H.  Seward  in  the 
United  States  Senate,  to  the  effect  that  "  Before  com- 


NOTES  251 

ing  into  office  Buchanan  approached,  or  was  approached, 
by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States."  The 
court,  alleged  Mr.  Seward,  informed  Mr.  Buchanan  of 
the  nature  of  its  expected  decision,  in  such  a  way  that 
the  President  was  able  to  "  announce  the  forthcoming 
extrajudicial  exposition  of  the  Constitution  and  pledge 
his  submission  to  it  as  authoritative  and  final." 
(Quoted   by   Rhodes'    Histor>'   of   the  U.    S.,   ii.   p.   268.) 

Mr,  Rhodes  indicates  the  lack  of  evidence  to  sustain 
the  charge.  **  The  only  evidence  for  the  charge  of 
Seward  lay  in  the  statement  of  the  President  in  his 
inaugural,  that  the  question  as  to  the  time  when  people 
of  a  territory  might  exclude  slavery  therefrom  was 
pending  before  the  Supreme  Court  and  would  speedily 
be  settled.  Undoubtedly  Buchanan  then  knew  what 
would  be  substantially  the  decision  of  the  court  on 
the  territorial  question — but  so  did  a  thousand  other 
men."  It  had  in  fact  been  accurately  forecast  in  the 
New  York  Tribune  of  March  2,  1856.  **  But,  however 
Buchanan  got  his  evidence,"  continues  Rhodes,  "  his 
character  and  that  of  Taney  are  proof  that  the  Chief 
Justice  did  not  communicate  the  import  of  the  deci- 
sion to  the  President-Elect, 

"  The  tact  of  Lincoln  is  shown  in  making  the  charge 
by  intimation  and  by  trenchant  questions;  then,  with 
humor  and  exquisite  skill,  giving  a  homely  illustration 
which  struck  the  popular  mind  so  forcibly  that  the 
notion  conveyed  by  it  undoubtedly  became  the  belief 
of  the  Republican  masses  as  long  as  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  remained  a  question  of  politics."  (Rhodes' 
Histor\',  Vol.  ii.  p.  270.) 

The  character  of  the  evidence  tending  to  prove  the 
broad  conspiracy  to  nationalize  slavery,  on  the  part  of 
"  Stephen,  and  Roger,  and  Franklin,  and  James."  so 
far  as  it  is  brought  forward  by  Lincoln  in  the  Debates, 
is  discussed  in  subsequent  notes.  (See  24:20.  25:25,  26:8, 
and  31:2,  and  notes  thereon.) 


252  NOTES 

9:  22.  If  McLean  or  Curtis  had  sought. — At  the  time 
of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  March  6,  1857,  the  Supreme 
Court  consisted  of  five  members  from  Southern  states. 
Of  the  four  judges  from  Northern  states  two  were 
Democrats;  Justice  McLean  was  the  only  Republican, 
and  Justice  Curtis  was  still  rated  as  a  Whig.  In  the 
decision,  all  justices  essentially  concurred  except  Jus- 
tices McLean  and  Curtis,  the  latter  of  whom  wrote 
an  extremely  able  minority  opinion. 

9:25.  Chase  and  Mace. — Senator  Salmon  P.  Chase  of 
Ohio,  of  pronounced  anti-slavery  views;  the  leading 
opponent  of  Douglas  in  the  Kansas-Nebraska  debate 
in  1854.  Daniel  Mace,  was  a  Democratic  Representa- 
tive from  Indiana  and  an  opponent  of  the  Nebraska 
Bill. 

11:4  There  are  those  who  denounce  us. — Lincoln 
was  obliged  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign  to  meet 
a  singular  defection  among  the  leaders  of  his  own 
party.  Horace  Greeley,  the  powerful  editor  of  the  New 
York  Tribune^  Anson  G.  Burlingame,  Schuyler  Colfax, 
and  many  others,  became  for  a  time  more  or  less  openly 
sympathizers  with  Douglas.  Lincoln's  comparative  ob- 
scurity, and  the  unparalleled  prestige  of  Douglas  as  a 
national  leader,  were  the  incentives  to  this  political 
unfaith.  This  defection  was  a  great  mortification  to 
Lincoln  and  a  stumbling  block  throughout  his  entire 
campaign.  Senator  Douglas  never  had  any  lasting  idea 
of  becoming  a  Republican  leader.  His  lack  of  convic- 
tions on  the  slavery  issue,  as  Lincoln  points  out,  unfitted 
him  for  such  a  step.  His  votes  on  the  Lecompton 
matter  and  the  English  Bill,  were  among  the  highest 
expressions  in  his  whole  career  of  a  political  morality, 
previously  very  unstable.  But  no  other  explanation  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  defeat  for  the  Senatorship  is  necessary 
beyond  this  defection  of  Republican  leaders  in  their 
following  after  a  vain  hope. 

11:6.     A  little  quarrel  with  the  present  head  of  the 


NOTES  253 

dynasty — The  reference  is  to  Douglas's  quarrel  with 
the  Buchanan  administration  on  account  of  his  revolt 
against  the  Lecompton  Constitution,  and  the  English 
Bill  (see  Introduction  p.  xxiii). 

THE  SECOND  JOINT  DEBATE 
AT  FREEPORT* 

August   27,   1858 

The  first  two  of  the  series  of  seven  debates,  those  at 
Ottawa  and  Freeport,  took  place  in  Northern  Illinois, 
among  a  population  strong  in  Republican  and  Aboli- 
tion sentiment.  In  the  Ottawa  debate  on  August  21, 
Douglas  had  attacked  the  "  House-divided-against-it- 
self"  doctrine  as  revolutionary;  had  sneered  at  Lin- 
coln for  maintaining  that  negroes  were  included  in  the 
statement  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  that  "  all 
men  are  created  equal  ";  and  had  criticised  his  opponent 
for  his  continued  opposition  to  the  principles  affirmed 
by  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court  in  the  Dred  Scott  decision. 
By  this  mode  of  attack,  Douglas  sought,  first  of  all,  to 
fix  extreme  abolition  principles  upon  Lincoln,  thinking 
to  accomplish  this  the  more  readily,  since  Lincoln,  in 
giving  voice  to  radical  views  in  this  section  of  the 
state,  would  be  heartily  applauded  by  those  whose  sup- 
port he  sought.  But  such  an  expression  in  Northern 
Illinois,  Douglas  knew,  would  embarrass  Lincoln  when 
he  came  to  address  audiences  in  Central  Illinois  which 
were  divided  or  lukewarm  in  their  attitude  toward 
slavery;  and  would  embarrass  him  still  more  before  the 
pro-slavery  audiences  of  Southern  Illinois — "  Egypt," 
as  it  is  termed  in  the  Debates.  Lincoln's  following  was 
heterogeneous.  "  Their  principles,"  tauntingly  ex- 
claimed Douglas,  "  in  the  North  are  jet-black,  in  the 
center  they  are  in  color  a  decent  mulatto,  and  in  lower 
Egypt  they  are  almost  white."     If  he  could  fix  extreme 

*For  a  general  account  of  the  tcriei  of  debatetf  tec  the  latruduclioa. 


254  NOTES 

abolition  views  upon  Lincoln  in  Northern  Illinois, 
Douglas  hoped  thereby  to  detach  many  of  Lincoln's  sup- 
porters in  central  and  southern  Illinois.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  if  Lincoln  resisted  the  temptation  thus  set 
before  him,  but  failed,  through  timidity  or  conservatism, 
to  satisfy  his  anti-slavery  hearers  in  Northern  Illinois, 
disintegration  would  begin  on  the  spot  in  the  ranks  of 
those  who  were  expected  to  support  him. 

As  a  specific  means  of  accomplishing  his  end,  Senator 
Douglas  propounded  seven  questions  to  Mr.  Lincoln  in 
the  Ottawa  Debate,  based  on  certain  resolutions  passed 
in  1854,  alleged  Senator  Douglas,  by  the  first  Republi- 
can state  convention  ever  held  in  Illinois — resolutions 
expressive  of  strong  Abolition  sentiment,  which,  accord- 
ing to  Douglas  were  passed  in  the  presence  and  with 
the  sanction  of  Lincoln.  (For  a  copy  of  these  resolu- 
tions, see  p.  260.) 

In  reply  to  Douglas  at  Ottawa  Lincoln  asserted  that 
he  had  had  no  connection  whatever  with  the  resolu- 
tions quoted  by  his  opponent  and  was,  therefore,  under 
no  obligation  to  answer  the  questions  asked.  Never- 
theless he  consented  to  do  so  provided  Judge  Douglas 
would  agree  to  answer  similar  questions  that  might 
subsequently  be  asked  by  Mr.  Lincoln  himself.  To  this 
proposal  Judge  Douglas  made  at  the  time  no  answer. 

The  Ottawa  debate  appears  to  have  been  a  drawn 
battle.  The  partisans  of  either  side  were  enthusiastic. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  carried  off  on  the  shoulders  of  several 
young  farmers  who  overruled  his  remonstrances.  But 
perhaps  the  advantage  in  this  first  debate  lay  on  the 
whole  with  Douglas.  His  questions  had  not  been 
answered.  Lincoln  yielded  the  platform  thirteen  min- 
utes before  the  expiration  of  his  time.  The  superior 
dexterity  and  polish  of  Douglas  are  apparent  to  the 
reader  of  the  debate,  and  the  effect  of  its  publication, 
declared  Douglas's  partisan  biographer,  James.  W. 
Sheehan,  was   most   damaging  to   Lincoln.     ''  The   fate 


Korrs  255 

of  Lincoln  was  scaled  by  the  discussion  at  Ottawa,  and 
nothing  but  a  special  interposition  of  Providence  could 
have  elected  a  legislature  favorable  to  his  election  to  the 
Senate."  (Life  of  Douglas:  p.  432.)  Though  Lincoln 
was  then,  as  always,  immeasurably  the  superior  of 
Douglas  morally  and  in  intellectual  power,  he  had  not 
yet  attained  his  subsequent  height  of  earnestness  and 
spiritual  vision;  nor  had  he  yet  acquired  the  uniform 
literary  skill,  which  becomes  progressively  apparent  as 
the  campaign  goes  on. 

The  Frecport  debate,  the  second  in  the  series,  says 
Mr.  Horace  White  (Herndon's  Life  of  Lincoln,  Vol.  ii. 
p.  no),  was  attended  by  "a  crowd  even  larger  than 
that  at  Ottawa.  Hundreds  of  people  came  from  Chi- 
cago and  many  from  the  neighboring  state  of  Wiscon- 
sin. Douglas  came  from  Galena  the  night  before  the 
debate,  and  was  greeted  with  a  great  torchlight  proces- 
sion. Lincoln  came  the  fallowing  day  from  Dixon  and 
was  received  at  the  railway  station  by  a  dense  crowd, 
filling  up  the  adjacent  streets,  who  shouted  themselves 
hoarse  when  his  tall  form  was  seen  emerging  from  the 
tr^in." 

This  debate  is  perhaps  the  most  famous  of  all  the 
series.  That  is  true,  not  because  of  its  literary  excel- 
lence, but  because  of  the  subsequent  national  impor- 
tance of  answers  made  by  each  candidate  to  vital  ques- 
tions put  by  the  other — answers  which,  in  the  case  of 
Senator  Douglas,  won  for  him  the  Senatorship,  but 
destroyed  his  chance  of  attaining  the  larger  goal  of  his 
ambition,  the  Presidency  in  i860. 

MR.   LINCOLN'S   SPEECH 

The  Questions  of  Senator  Douglas 

14:15.  !Mr.  Lincoln  opened  the  Freeport  debate  by 
answering  the  seven  questions  which  had  been  pro- 
pounded to  him  by  Judge  Douglas  at  Ottawa.     In  the 


256  NOTES 

week  which  had  intervened  since  the  debate  at  Ottawa, 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  ascertained  to  his  satisfaction  that  the 
resolutions  used  by  Judge  Douglas  at  Ottawa  were, 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  in  this  c-ampaign,  a  forgery. 
The  issue  which  thereupon  arose  as  to  their  genuine- 
ness between  the  rival  candidates  is  one  of  the  most 
conspicuous  of  the  merely  local  features  of  the  cam- 
paign. The  dispute  upon  them  recurs  with  consider- 
able acrimony  in  the  Galesburgh  debate.  (See  Lin- 
coln's speech,  pp.  113-116,  and  Douglas's  rejoinder,  pp. 
133-136-)  Lincoln,  however,  waiving  the  question 
whether  Douglas  has  any  right  to  require  him  to 
answer  questions  based  upon  a  platform  for  which  he 
is  in  no  way  responsible — proceeds  to  answer  each  in 
detail.  His  first  series  of  responses  seems  to  take 
a  technical  advantage  of  the  precise  phrasing  of  Doug- 
las's questions. 

Does   Mr.   Lincoln   derive   any   real  advantage   from 
this  first  series  of  technical  denials? 

17:21.  Question  i.  In  regard  to  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law.  The  Fugitive  Law  of  1850  aroused  bitter  opposi- 
tion in  the  North.  Among  its  most  obnoxious  provisions 
were  the  following:  (i)  Alleged  fugitive  slaves  were 
denied  the  right  of  testimony  in  their  own  behalf.  "  Ex- 
parte  evidence  determined  the  identity  of  the  negro  who 
was  claimed.  Even  the  affidavit  of  the  owner  was  not 
necessary;  that  of  his  agent  or  attorney  would  suffice." 
(Rhodes'  History  of  U.  S.,  4.  185.)  (2)  The  reclaimed 
slave  was  denied  the  right  of  trial  by  jury,  but  was 
tried  by  commissioners  appointed  by  the  United  Cir- 
cuit Courts,  who  were  "  to  hear  and  determine  the  case 
of  a  claimant  in  a  summary  manner."  The  decision  of 
these  commissioners  once  made,  no  "  ccfurt,  judge, 
magistrate,  or  any  person"  could  "molest"  the  owner 
of  a  recovered  slave  by  any  legal  process  whatsoever. 
(3)  The  United  States  marshals  were  obli"ed  to  exe- 
cute   the    law    under    penalty    of    heavy    fine    for    laxity 


NOTES  2S7 

of  effort.  (4)  Bystanders  "and  '*'  all  good  citizens " 
could  be  summoned  to  prevent  the  escape  or  to  aid  in 
the  discovery  of  a  negro  fugitive;  and  any  person  who 
should  willingly  "  hinder  or  prevent  the  claimant  from 
arresting  the  fugitive,"  or  should  "  rescue,  or  attempt  to 
rescue  ....  or  harbor  or  conceal  "  the  fugitive, 
was  liable  to  a  "  fine  not  exceeding  $1,000.  and  to 
imprisonment  not  exceeding  six  months;  and  should, 
moreover,  for  each  fugitive  so  lost,  pay  to  his  owner 
the  sum  of  $1,000.  (5)  If  the  Commissioner  decided 
that  the  negro  should  be  returned  to  the  claimant,  his 
fee  was  ten  dollars;  if  the  contrary,  his  fee  was  five 
dollars." 

The  interest  of  the  slave-holders  in  the  enactment  can 
be  judged  from  the  following  statement  made  in  Scrib- 
ner's  Popular  History  of  the  U.  S.,  (Vol.  iv.  p.  395)  : 
"  It  was  estimated  that  more  than  30.000  fugitive  slaves 
found  homes  in  Canada  during  the  thirty  years  of  the 
anti-slavery  agitation;  and  that  at  the  time  of  the  pas- 
sage of  the  act  of  1850  there  were  not  less  than  20,000 
in  the  free  states." 

The  citizens  of  the  free  states,  excepting  the  Aboli- 
tionists, who  formed  a  small  proportion  of  the  popu- 
lation, were  as  a  rule  in  favor  of  the  general  principle 
which  permitted  a  slave-holder  to  recover  a  slave  who 
had  crossed  the  border  into  a  free  state  or  territory;  but 
the  specific  provisions  of  the  law  of  1850,  especially 
those  which  made  every  citizen  liable  on  demand  to 
render  assistance  in  recapturing  fugitives,  were  exe- 
crated. Ttie  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  in 
1854  did  much  to  awaken  a  smarting  sense  of  their  injus- 
tice. Thereafter,  the  law  had  no  efficient  enforcement. 
See   Lincoln's   speech    at    Cooper    Institute:    201:5. 

18:  5.  Question  2.  Whether  I  am  pledged  to  the  admis- 
sion of  any  more  Slave  States.  This  cautious  and  hesi- 
tating reply  to  an  extraordinarily  shrewd  question  is 
ridiculed  by  Judge  Douglas  in  his  reply  on  pp.  59-C3  to 


2s8  NOTES 

Mr.  Lincoln's  answers  to  Questions  T  and  2.  When 
Mr.  Lincoln  makes  the  hypothesis  (line  12),  "if  slavery 
shall  be  kept  out  of  the  territories  during  the  territorial 
existence  of  any  one  given  territory,"  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  Dred  Scott  decision  of  1857  had 
already  in  effect  legalized  slavery  in  all  the  territories. 
The  answer,  therefore,  is  indirect. 

What  would  have  been  the  effect  of  a  more  direct 
answer,  positive  or  negative?  Notice  especially  in  this 
connection  Douglas's  attack  in  the  Alton  debate 
(148:24  et  seq.)  on  this  same  reply  of  Lincoln's. 
Has  Lincoln  sought  to  evade  the  question  by  "  invent- 
ing a  case  which  did  not  exist  and  could  not  exist" 
at  the  time  when*  he  answered  the  question?  (See 
Douglas's  assertion  to  that  effect,  p.  150,  line  27.) 

The  answer  as  given  must  certainly  have  failed  to 
satisfy  the  Abolitionists.  Douglas  says  (149:28), 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  supposed  "  it  would  satisfy  the  old 
line  Whigs,  composed  of  Kentuckians  and  Virginians, 
down  in  the  southern  part  of  the  State,"  men  who 
favored  slavery,  but  who  believed  the  Union  should  be 
preserved  at  any  cost. 

18:  19.  If  we  own  the  country,  i.e.  If  the  territory 
already  belongs  to  us ;  an  allusion  to  the  contemplated 
acquisition  of  Cuba  by  purchase — a  favorite  plan  of 
President  Buchanan  and  his  Southern  advisers. 

18:24.  Question  4.  In  regard  to  the  abolition  of 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  This  question  of 
abolishing  slavery  within  the  District  is  distinct  from 
that  of  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade  therein,  which 
took  place  in  1850,  as  a  result  of  one  of  the  measures 
of  the  Compromise  legislation  of  that  year. 

Mr.  Lincoln  favors  abolition  in  the  District  only  if 
it  be  "  gradual,  compensated,  and  accomplished  with  the 
consent  of  the  inhabitants."  Were  these  three  condi- 
tions likely  to  be  agreeable  or  equally  agreeable  to  the 
anti-slavery  element  of  Illinois? 


NOTES  259 

rg:  ir.  Question  5.  The  question  of  the  abolition  of 
the  slave  trade  between  the  different  states.  Though 
Lincoln's  rcpl}'  is  ahiidst  ahsohitcly  non-committal,  the 
question  raised  is  entirely  unimportant  as  an  issue  in 
the  debates  of  this  campaign. 

20:  I.  Question  6.  Whether  I  desire  that  Slavery 
should  be  prohibited  in  all  the  territories.  In  the 
answer  to  this  interrogation,  at  least,  Lincoln  is  explicit 
and  direct.  {i6:j9.)  Here  he  goes  the  entire  length  desired 
by  his  immediate  audience. 

20: 5.  Question  7.  Whether  I  am  opposed  to  the 
acquisition  of  more  territory  unless  slavery  is  first  pro- 
hibited. Lincoln's  declaration  (17:4),  that  in  general 
he  would  or  would  not  oppose  the  acquisition  of 
new  territory  accordingly  as  he  thought  it  would  or 
would  not  aggravate  the  slavery  question  "  derived  its 
immediate  importance  from  the  well-known  intention 
of  the  Buchanan  administration  and  a  very  considerable 
party  in  the  South  very  soon  to  acquire  Cuba."  (J.  J. 
Morse:  Abraham  Lincoln,  Vol.  i.  p.  134.)  While  Secre- 
tary of  State  under  Polk,  Buchanan  had  offered  Spain 
$100,000,000  for  the  island. 

For  Douglas's  views  upon  "expansion"  sec  pp.  40- 
41.  And  especially  see  Lincoln's  reply  at  Galesburgh, 
pp.  125-129. 

20:  J2.  The  Questions  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  anno- 
tation of  these  questions  is  deferred  until  i\Ir.  Doug- 
las's answers  to  them  are  discussed.  See  the  annotation 
of  page  23  et  seq.  Mr.  Lincoln  now  takes  the  aggres- 
sive. 

21:20.  The  first  Republican  Convention,  held  at 
Springfield  in  October,  1854.  This  introtluces  the  issue 
ot  the  authenticity  of  the  resolutions  to  which  reference 
has  already  been  made.  The  important  sections  of  the 
resolutions  quoted  at  Ottawa  by  Mr.  Douglas,  with 
his  prefatory  remarks  concerning  them  are  appended 
herewith.     After   charging   that   Lincoln   and   Trumbu'.l 


26o  NOTES 

had  conspired  together  to  make  a  new  party  out  of  the 
disrupted  elements  of  the  Old  Whigs  and  Democrats 
(see  Introduction),  and  that  they  had  at  this  time  assem- 
bled their  forces  in  conjunction  with  Owen  Lovejoy, 
Fred  Douglass  and  other  Abolition  leaders  in  a  state 
convention,  Senator  Douglas  goes  on: 

"  I  have  the  resolutions  of  their  state  convention  then 
held,  which  was  the  first  mass  state  convention  ever 
held  in  Illinois  by  the  Black  Republican  party.  .  .  . 
Here  are  the  most  important  and  material  resolutions 
of  this  Abolition  platform: 

"  '  I.  Resolved,  That  we  believe  this  truth  to  be  self-evi- 
dent, that  when  parties  become  subversive  of  the  ends 
for  which  they  are  established,  or  incapable  of  restor- 
ing the  Government  to  the  true  principles  of  the  Con- 
stitution, it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  the  people  to  dis- 
solve the  political  bands  by  which  they  may  have  been 
connected  therewith,  and  to  organize  new  parties  upon 
such  principles  and  with  such  views  as  the  circum- 
stances and  exigencies  of  the  nation  may  demand. 

"'2.  Resolved,  That  the  times  imperatively  demand  the 
reorganization  of  parties,  and,  repudiating  all  previous 
party  attachments,  names  and  predilections,  we  unite 
ourselves  together  in  defense  of  the  liberty  and  Consti- 
tution of  the  country,  and  will  hereafter  co-operate  as 
the  Republican  party,  pledged  to  the  accomplishment  of 
the  following  purposes:  To  bring  the  administration  of 
the  Government  back  to  the  control  of  first  principles; 
to  restore  Nebraska  and  Kansas  to  the  position  of  free 
territories;  as  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
vests  in  the  states,  and  not  in  Congress,  the  power  to 
legislate  for  the  extradition  of  fugitives  from  labor,  to 
repeal  and  entirely  abrogate  the  Fugitive  Slave  law; 
to  restrict  slavery  to  those  states  in  which  it  exists;  to 
prohibit  the  admission  of  any  more  slave  states  into  the 
Union;  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia; 
to  exclude  slavery  from  all  the  territories  over  which  the 


NOTES  261 

General  Government  has  exclusive  jurisdiction;  and  to 
resist  the  acquirements  of  any  more  territories  unless 
the  practice  of  slavery  therein  forever  shall  have  been 
prohibited.'  " 

The  facts  regarding  the  resolutions  as  recorded  by 
Lincoln's  law  partner,  William  H.  Herndun  (Life  of 
Lincoln,  Vol.  ii.  p.  36),  are,  briefly,  as  follows:  In  Octo- 
ber of  1854,  the  State  Fair  was  held  at  Springfield.  To 
it  came  Douglas  to  defend  the  Kansas-Nebraska  legis- 
lation especially  before  that  section  of  his  party  which 
he  had  alienated.  To  it  also  came  Lincoln,  the  spokes- 
man for  all  who  opposed  Douglas  and  his  new  theory 
of  Popular  Sovereignty.  Both  made  powerful  speeches. 
Lincoln's  address  kindled  anew  the  old  anti-Nebraska 
spirit  among  his  hearers,  and  Owen  Lovejoy,  a  fiery, 
radical,  fanatical  Abolitionist,  as  soon  as  Lincoln  fin- 
ished speaking,  rushed  forward,  and  announced  a  meet- 
ing that  same  evening  of  the  friends  of  Freedom. 
That  meant  all  the  Abolitionists.  The  plan  was  to  have 
Lincoln  speak  again,  but  while  Lovejoy  was  in  search 
of  him,  Herndon,  fearing  the  effect  such  an  affiliation 
might  have  on  Lincoln's  senatorial  ambitions,  for  the 
following  year,  sent  him  a  message  urging  him  to  avoid 
Lovejoy.  "Go  home  at  once,"  said  Herndon.  "Take 
Bob  with  you  and  drive  somewhere  into  the  country, 
and  stay  till  this  thing  is  over." 

Lincoln  accepted  the  suggestion  and  drove  over  into 
Tazewell  County  to  attend  a  session  of  court,  where  he 
remained  until  the  Abolitionists  had  left  Springfield  and 
gone  home.  That  is  what  saved  Lincoln  from  an 
unfortunate  political  connection. 

But  the  mass  meeting  thus  assembled  was  in  no 
sense  a  convention,  much  less  a  Republican  Convention. 
It  is  hard  to  believe  that  Senator  Douglas  could  have 
been  ignorant  of  this  fact.  The  very  resolutions  pre- 
sented by  him  at  Ottawa  as  having  been  passed  by  this 
convention   were   passed,   charges    Lincoln,   by   another 


262  NOTES 

convention  in  another  county.  This  fact  is  of  course 
the  basis  of  the  accusation  tliat  the  resolutions  were 
forged.  To  this  charge  Douglas  replies  at  length  and 
with  some  acrimony  on  pages  43-49  of  this  debate. 
Lincoln  returns  to  the  matter  in  his  reply  in  the  Gales- 
burgh   debate.     (See  pp.    113-118.) 

Before  leaving  this  topic,  it  should  be  noted  that 
Lincoln  has  already  (p.  15,  line  12),  stated  in  this  debate 
that  the  Republican  party  of  Illinois  held  its  first 
state  convention  at  Bloomington  in  1856,  two  years 
after  the  date  of  the  resolutions  under  discussion. 

24:20.  There  was  a  conspiracy  to  make  slavery  per- 
petual and  national.  This  charge  it  will  be  remembered 
constitutes  the  body  of  Lincoln's  Address  of  Acceptance 
at  Springfield  on  June  16,  1858.  The  attitude  of  Mr. 
Douglas  toward  it  is  expressed  in  the  following  selec- 
tion from  his  rejoinder  at  Ottawa: 

"  In  relation  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  charge  of  conspiracy 
against  me,  I  have  a  word  to  say.  In  his  speech  to-day 
he  quotes  a  playful  part  of  his  speech  at  Springfield, 
about  StepJien,  and  James,  and  Franklin,  and  Roger, 
and  says  that  I  did  not  take  exception  to  it.  I  did  not 
answer  it,  and  he  repeats  it  again.  I  did  not  take  excep- 
tion to  this  figure  of  his.  He  has  a  right  to  be  as  play- 
ful as  he  pleases  in  throwing  his  arguments  together, 
and  I  will  not  object;  but  I  did  take  objection  to  his 
second  Springfield  speech,  in  which  he  stated  that  he 
intended  his  first  speech  as  a  charge  of  corruption  or 
conspiracy  against  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  President  Pierce,  President  Buchanan,  and 
myself.  That  gave  the  offensive  character  to  the 
charge.  He  then  said  that  when  he  made  it  he  did 
not  know  .whether  it  was  true  or  not,  but  inasmuch  as 
Judgft  Douglas  had  not  denied  it,  although  he  had 
replied  to  the  other  parts  of  his  speech  three  times,  he 
repeated  it  as  a  charge  of  conspiracy  against  me,  thus 
charging  me  with  moral  turpitude.     When  he  put  it  in 


NOTES  263 

that  form,  I  did  say,  that  inasmuch  as  he  repeated  the 
charge  simply  because  I  had  not  denied  it,  I  would 
deprive  him  of  the  opportunity  of  ever  repeating  it 
again,  by  declaring  that  it  was  in  all  its  bearings  an 
infamous  lie.  He  says  he  will  repeat  it  until  I  answer 
his  folly  and  nonsense  about  Stephen,  and  Franklin, 
and  Roger,  and  Rob,  and  James. 

"  He  studied  that  out — prepared  that  one  sentence 
with  the  greatest  care,  committed  it  to  memory,  and 
put  it  in  his  first  Springfield  speech,  and  now  he  carries 
that  speech  around  and  reads  that  sentence  to  show 
how  pretty  it  is.  His  vanity  is  wounded  because  I  will 
not  go  into  that  beautiful  figure  of  his  about  the  building 
of  a  house.  All  I  have  to  say  is,  that  I  am  not  green 
enough  to  let  him  make  a  charge  which  he  acknowledges 
he  does  not  know  to  be  true,  and  then  take  up  my  time 
in  answering  it,  when  I  know  it  to  be  false  and  nobody 
else  knows  it  to  be  true. 

"  Mr,  Lincoln  has  not  character  enough  for  integrity 
and  truth,  merely  on  his  own  ipse  dixit,  to  arraign  Presi- 
dent Buchanan,  President  Pierce,  and  nine  Judges  of 
the  Supreme  Court,  not  one  of  whom  would  be  com- 
plimented by  being  put  on  an  equality  with  him.  There 
is  an  unpardonable  presumption  in  a  man  putting  him- 
self up  before  thousands  of  people,  and  pretending  that 
his  ipse  dixit,  without  proof,  without  fact,  and  without 
truth,  is  enough  to  bring  down  and  destroy  the  purest 
and  best  of  living  men."  See  text  and  notes,  8:17,  25:25, 
31:2.  ^  *  . 

24:29.  Observe  the  effectiveness  of  Lincoln's  quaint 
humor,  as  a  means  of  getting  rid  of  the  prejudicial 
acrimony  of  Senator  Douglas's  rejoinder  just  quoted. 

25:25.     By   an   amendment   it  was   provided 
not   to   legislate   slavery  into   any    State   or   Territory. 
Douglas  proposed  this  amendment  on  February  7.  1854, 
two   weeks  after  the   Kansas-Nebraska   Bill   was   intro- 
duced.    It   was,   said   Senator   Benton   of   Missouri,   "  a 


264  NOTES 

little  stump  speech  injected  into  the  belly  of  the  bill." 
The  entire  Bill,  applying  the  principle  of  Popular 
Sovereignty,  made  slavery  in  any  territory  permissive 
upon  the  will  of  the  people  to  introduce  it.  It  amounted 
to  an  absolute  repeal  of  the  eighth  section  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  of  1820,  which  prohibited  slavery  in 
the  territory  north  of  latitude  36°  30'.  This  repeal,  alone 
by  itself,  opened  the  way  for  the  Southern  contention 
that  slave-holders  had  "  a  constitutional  right  to  go  into 
any  territory  with  their  property — a  right  which  could 
not  be  affected  by  act  of  Congress  or  Territorial  legis- 
lature." To  admit  this  claim  would  have  been  a  com- 
plete betrayal  of  Northern  principles.  Douglas  had  made 
a  tremendous  concession  to  the  South.  He  sought  now 
to  allay  the  rising  tide  of  Northern  wrath  and  alarm. 
To  be  sure  he  had  already  embodied  in  the  provisions 
of  the  Bill  the  principle  of  Popular  Sovereignty,  giving 
the  people  of  the  territories  the  right  to  decide  for 
themselves  whether  slavery  should  exist  among  them, 
but  further  to  appease  many  Northern  Democrats  who 
were  willing  to  subscribe  to  that  principle,  but  who 
repudiated  the  Southern  belief  in  the  constitutionality 
of  slavery — to  appease  them,  and  thus  prevent  a  threat- 
ened div-ision  of  his  forces,  Douglas  introduced  the 
amendment  quoted  by  Lincoln.  Its  purpose  was  purely 
persuasive.  Its  introduction  of  the  word  "State"  into 
the  bill  was,  however,  regarded  as  ominous  by  Lincoln, 
who  cited  the  circumstance  in  the  Ottawa  debate  in 
corroboration  of  his  theory  of  a  conspiracy  to  nation- 
alize slavery. 

26:8.  Mr.  Chase  of  Ohio  introduced  an  amendment 
.  .  .  to  exclude  slavery  if  they  saw  fit.  This 
amendment  was  introduced  on  Feb.  6,  1854,  the  day 
before  Senator  Douglas's  amendment  just  quoted  was 
presented.  Senator  Salmon  P.  Chase,  later  appointed 
Chief  Justice  of  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court  by  President 
Lincoln,  was  Douglas's  chief  opponent  in  the  warfare 


NOTES  265 

over  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill.  Chase  was  a  Free- 
Soil  Senator  from  Ohio,  a  radical  anti-slavery  man  and 
an  able  leader.  Presumably  he  had  no  idea  that  Doug- 
las would  accept  any  amendment  proposed  by  him  of 
the  character  described — any  more  than  he  had  himself 
of  accepting  the  suggestion  of  General  Cass,  (28:2) 
for  an  amendment  that  should  give  the  people  of 
the  territories  the  power  to  introduce  as  well  as  to 
exclude  slavery.  The  amendment  was  a  phase  of  the 
parliamentary  battle  which  Chase  was  waging  to  expose 
the  extreme  pro-slavery  character  of  the  bill,  and  thus 
divide  the  Northern  and  Southern  Democrats.  This 
division,  threatened  then,  and  avoided  by  various 
temporary  expedients  of  Douglas  (see  the  previous 
note),  became  a  formally  accomplished  fact  in  the 
presidential  campaign  of  i860.  The  replies  of  Doug- 
las in  this  Freeport  Debate  to  the  questions  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  contain  the  doctrine  which  made  the  breach 
inevitable. 

For  Douglas's  reply  to  this  argument  of  Lincoln, 
see  p.  36:  14  ct  scq.  Is  Lincoln's  use  of  the  facts  of 
this  amendment,  as  tending  to  prove  the  alleged  con- 
spiracy to  nationalize  slavery,  conclusive? 

26:  18.  A  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  The  Dred 
Scott  decision  of  1857,  rendered  three  years  after  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  became  a  law.  For  its  bearing 
on  the  conspiracy  charge  it  should  be  remembered  that 
the  Dred  Scott  case  was  first  argued  before  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  in  the  spring  of  1856.  See 
note   on   8:17.     See   especially    Douglas,   p.   64:27. 

28:2.  General  Cass.  Lewis  Cass  (1782-1866),  Dem- 
ocratic Senator  from  Michigan,  was  an  ardent  supporter 
and  main  ally  of  Henry  Clay,  in  his  compromise  meas- 
ures of  1850,  and  one  of  the  most  prominent  leaders  of 
his  party. 

30: 20.  Upon  his  ipse  dixit  charging  a  conspiracy. 
The  language  of  Douglas  appears  in  the  last  paragraph 


266  NOTES 

cited  from  the  Ottawa  debate,  in  the  annotation  upon 
24:20. 

31:2.  That  he  had  made  substantially  the  same 
charge  against  substantially  the  same  persons.  In  the 
Ottawa  Debate,  Lincoln  had  quoted  matter  from  a 
speech  of  Douglas  in  the  Senate  on  March  22,  1858,  in 
which  Douglas,  after  reading  certain  passages  from  the 
Washington  Union  upon  the  Lecompton  Constitution, 
pointed  out  their  essential  relation  to  certain  passages 
in  the  Lecompton  Constitution  itself,  and  further 
declared  that  the  evidence  pointed  to  a  common  author- 
itative source  for  both  expressions;  that  common  source 
being  he  inferred  none  other  than  President  Buchanan. 
This  amounted  to  a  charge  on  Douglas's  part  that  the 
Administration  was  conspiring  to  defraud  Kansas  of  her 
right  to  determine  for  herself  whether  she  should  per- 
mit slavery  within  her  borders  or  not.  Thus  Lincoln 
seeks  Douglas's  admission  that  he  believed  Buchanan 
to  be  a  party  to  a  conspiracy  to  engraft  slavery  upon 
Kansas,  and  by  so  doing  Lincoln  seeks  to  forge  another 
link  in  his  circumstantial  proof  of  a  conspiracy  to 
nationalize  slavery.  Douglas  qualifies  his  own  charge 
in  his  Reply,  beginning  64:  10,  but  see  especially 
Lincoln's  reiteration  of  the  whole  matter  in  his  Rejoin- 
der, pages  72-78. 

The  elements  of  the  conspiracy  to  nationalize  slavery 
as  thus  far  outlined  in  the  campaign  by  Lincoln  are: 
(i)  the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  of  1854, 
repealing  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  putting  into 
operation  the  principle  of  popular  sovereignty;  (2)  the 
defeat  of  the  Chase  amendment  in  1854;  (3)  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  of  1857,  denying  the  rights  of  citizenship 
to  the  negro,  affirming  the  constitutionality  of  slavery 
and  denying  the  power  of  Congress  or  a  territorial  legis- 
lature to  exclude  slavery  from  any  territory;  (4)  the  impli- 
cation of  the  Buchanan  administration  in  the  Lecompton 
scheme  in  November,  1857.     (5)   There  is  left  a  "vacant 


NOTES  267 

niche,"  yet  to  be  filled  by  a  new  Dred  Scott  decision,  soon  to 
come,  whereby  slavery  will  be  legalized  in  the  states  as  well 
as  in  the  territories.  Then  nationalization  will  be  complete. 
To  what  extent  does  Lincoln's  treatment  of  the  sev- 
eral phases  of  this  conspiracy  amount  to  demonstra- 
tion ? 


MR.    DOUGLAS'S    REPLY 

The  Questions  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  their  Answers  by 

Senator  Douglas 

(The  questions  as  Lincoln  asked  them  appear  <jn 
pages  20-21.) 

337-  Question  i.  "If  the  people  of  Kansas  shall, 
by  means  entirely  unobjectionable  in  all  other  respects, 
adopt  a  state  constitution,  and  ask  admission  into  the 
Union  under  it,  before  they  have  the  requisite  number  of 
inhabitants  according  to  the  English  Bill — some  ninety- 
three  thousand — will  you  vote  to  admit  them?" 

The  Lecompton  Constitution  (see  Introduction  p.  xxxii), 
after  its  adoption  at  the  grossly  unjust  election  of  Dec. 
21,  1857,  at  which,  according  to  Douglas,  "probably  four- 
fifths  of  all  the  legal  voters  of  Kansas  were  disfran- 
chised and  excluded  from  the  polls,"  was  sent  to  Con- 
gress by  President  Buchanan  on  Feb.  2,  1858,  with  a 
special  message  recommending  the  admission  of  Kansas 
under  that  organic  act.  This  recommendation  was  made 
by  the  President  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  at  a  sub- 
sequent valid  and  lawful  election  on  Jan.  4,  1858.  the 
legal  voters  of  the  state,  by  a  large  majority  had 
rejected  the  Lecompton  Constitution.  The  Constitu- 
tion, however,  passed  the  Senate  on  March  23,  despite 
the  revolt  of  Douglas.  On  April  i,  1858,  the  bill  was 
amended  in  the  House  by  motion  of  Montgomery,  a 
Democratic  Representative  from  Pennsylvania.  The 
Senate  had  voted  down  the  same  amendment,   proposed 


268  NOTES 

in  that  body  by  Senator  Crittenden,  a  Kentucky  Whig. 
The  proposition,  which  came  to  be  known  as  the  Crit- 
tenden-AIontgomery  Compromise,  "  provided  that  the 
Lecompton  Constitution  should  be  submitted  to  a  vote 
of  the  people  of  Kansas;  if  assented  to,  Kansas  should 
become  a  state  on  the  proclamation  of  the  President; 
if  rejected,  the  inhabitants  of  the  territory  were  author- 
ized to  form  a  constitution  and  state  government." 
(Rhodes:  History  of  U.  S.,  ii.  299.)  The  Senate  refused 
to  concur  with  the  House  in  this  measure.  In  the  effort 
to  reach  an  agreement  between  the  Senate  and  the 
House,  William  H.  English,  a  Representative  from 
Indiana,  proposed  another  Compromise,  known  as  the 
English  Bill.  This  measure  offered  Kansas  a  large  grant 
of  public  lands,  if  the  territory  would  vote  to  accept 
statehood  under  the  Lecompton  Constitution;  if  it  re- 
fused to  do  so,  Kansas  could  not  be  admitted  until 
its  population  equaled  the  ratio  required  for  a  repre- 
sentative, i.  e.j  93,420.  The  population  of  Kansas  in  1858 
was  about  35,000.  Even  with  these  bribes,  the  people 
of  Kansas  refused  to  ratify  the  Lecompton  Con- 
stitution. 

To  return  to  the  question  asked  Douglas  by  Lincoln. 
Lincoln  and  Douglas  were  in  essential  agreement  upon 
the  Lecompton  issue.  Why  then  did  Lincoln  press  his 
opponent  for  an  answer  to  this  question?  Just  as 
Douglas  had  sought  to  divide  Lincoln's  followers  by 
imputing  Abolition  tenets  to  him,  so  Lincoln  sought 
now  to  take  advantage  of  the  open  warfare  on  the 
Lecompton  matter  between  Douglas  and  the  Buchanan 
Administration,  as  a  means  of  cutting  off  some 
of  Douglas's  support.  There  was  a  small  and  rather 
disreputable  party  of  Buchanan  Democrats  in  Illinois 
consisting  mainly  of  office-holders,  who  had  nominated 
candidates  in  this  campaign  in  obedience  to  behests 
from  Washington  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  injure 
Pouglas.     These  people,  called  *'  Danites,"   cast  about 


NOTES  269 

5000  votes.  Into  these  ranks  pro-slavery  Democrats  at 
odds  with  Douglas's  position  on  the  Kansas  question 
would  naturally  fall.  To  this  question  Lincoln  probahly 
expected  a  negative  answer,  but  by  his  cleverly  shielded 
affirmative  answer  Douglas  avoided  widening  the 
breach  with  his  own  party,  while  at  the  same  time, 
though  his  answer  was  a  slight  concession  to  pro- 
slavery  interests,  he  did  not  drive  from  him  voters 
that  wavered  between  himself  and  Lincoln,  but  were 
essentially  opposed  to  slavery.  In  short,  Douglas's 
answer  did  not  seriously  disturb  the  delicate  balance  of 
political  sentiment, 

34:25.  Whether  he  will  vote  to  admit  Oregon  before 
requisite  population.  Many  Republicans  op- 
posed the  admission  of  Oregon  to  the  Union  because 
she  lacked  sufficient  population  for  a  unit  of  repre- 
sentation in  Congress.  Kansas  had  already  been  held 
to  this  rule.     Oregon,  however,  was  admitted  in  1859. 

35:  12.  Question  2.  Can  the  people  of  United  States 
territory,  in  any  lawful  way,  against  the  wish  of  any 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  from  its 
limits  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  state  constitution? 
To  appreciate  the  full  force  of  this  interrogatory,  which 
embodies  Lincoln's  most  vital  thrust  at  his  opponent, 
the  student  must  bear  in  mind  the  nature  of  Douglas's 
doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty,  and  the  effect  upon  it 
of  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  In  his  speech  in  the  Senate 
on  March  3,  1854,  in  defense  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill,  Douglas  had  thus  defined  popular  sovereignty :  The 
principle  which  we  propose  to  carry  into  effect  is  this — 
That  Congress  shall  neither  legislate  slavery  into  any  ter- 
ritories or  state,  nor  out  of  the  same;  but  the  people  shall 
be  left  free  to  regulate  their  domestic  concerns  in  their  ozvn 
way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States." 
This  was  the  principle  which  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
Act  substituted  for  the  plain  provisions  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise.     Except  in  so  far  as  it  concerns  slavery 


270  NOTES 

Douglas's  principle  of  Popular  Sovereignty  is  identical 
with  the  principle  of  individual  liberty  for  which  the 
Revolutionary  War  was  fought.  (See  Douglas  at  Alton 
212:  12.)  The  constitutional  limitations  suggested  in 
the  final  clause  of  the  quotation  were  left  by  agreement 
in  a  caucus  of  Northern  and  Southern  Democrats  to 
the  courts  to  interpret.  But  the  Dred  Scott  decision 
in  1857  provided  the  interpretation  promised.  It  de- 
clared that  Congress  could  not  prohibit  slavery  in  the 
territories,  nor  authorize  a  territorial  legislature  to  do 
so.  Thus  the  Dred  Scott  decision  annihilated  "  popular 
sovereignty." 

To  Douglas  was  left  the  task  of  reconciling  his  theory 
with  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  If  he  gave  up 
the  principle  he  had  so  long  fought  for  with  such 
prodigious  power,  and  accepted  the  decision  of  the 
court,  he  would  thereby  make  a  complete  surrender  to 
the  South  and  forfeit  his  entire  following  in  the  North. 
That  meant  the  loss  of  the  senatorial  campaign  of  1858, 
and  the  destruction  of  his  presidential  aspirations  for 
i860.  If  on  the  other  hand  he  maintained  the  principle 
and  attacked  the  decision,  he  forfeited  his  pledge  to  the 
South,  and  occupied  the  questionable  ground  of  refusing 
to  abide  by  a  decision  of  the  highest  judicial  tribunal. 
Of  the  two  alternatives,  the  latter  was  the  less  destruc- 
tive of  his  chances  in  the  present  campaign;  both  were 
equally  fatal  to  his  presidential  ambitions  for  two  years 
hence.  The  dilemma  was  sufficiently  serious,  but  his 
presidential  more  than  his  senatorial  interests  were  in 
jeopardy.  Was  it  to  Lincoln's  interest  to  force  the 
issue?  Could  the  resourceful  Douglas  discover  or  in- 
vent a  way  to  extricate  himself?  Could  he  devise  a 
way  to  reconcile  the  principle  and  the  decision? 

Since  the  Lecompton  measure  of  1857-8  Douglas  had 
been  employing  his  principle  as  a  means  of  resisting 
the  encroachments  of  slavery.  To  such  an  extent  had  he 
thereby  separated  himself  from  the  Administration  and 


NOTES  271 

its  Southern  supporters,  that  many  Northern  Republi- 
cans sought  to  see  in  him  a  proselyte  and  new  leader 
for  their  party,  and  were  even  supporting  him  against 
Lincoln  in  this  campaign.  If  Douglas  could  satisfy  his  fol- 
lowers that  the  people  of  the  territories  still  had  the  power 
to  reject  slavery,  notwithstanding  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
Lincoln's  attempt  to  force  the  issue  in  this  second  question 
might  result  in  strengthening  this  feeling  of  confidence 
in  Douglas  as  a  bulwark  against  the  aggressions  of 
the  South,  and  exactly  to  that  extent  detract  from  the 
support  of  Lincoln. 

Whether  Lincoln  should  put  the  question  to  Douglas 
at  Freeport  or  not  was  the  subject  of  a  conference 
the  night  before  the  debate,  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  a 
number  of  Republican  leaders.  All  who  were  there 
counseled  Lincoln  not  to  put  the  question,  because  he 
would  probably  answer  in  the  affirmative  and  secure  a 
re-election.  '*  It  was  their  opinion,"  says  Mr.  Horace 
White,  "  that  Lincoln  should  argue  strongly  from  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  which  Douglas  endorsed,  that  the 
people  of  the  territories  could  not  lawfully  exclude 
slavery  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  State  Constitution, 
but  that  he  should  not  force  Douglas  to  say  yes  or  no. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Lincoln  replied  that  to  draw  an  affirmative 
answer  from  Douglas  on  this  question  was  exactly 
what  he  wanted,  and  that  his  object  was  to  make 
it  impossible  for  Douglas  to  get  the  vote  of  the 
Southern  States  in  the  next  Presidential  election."  "  I 
am  after  larger  game,"  Lincoln  is  said  to  have  re- 
marked ;  "  the  battle  of  i860  is  worth  a  hundred  of 
this." 

The  following  extract  from  Nicolay  and  Hay's  Life 
of  Lincoln,   (vol.  ii.  p.   159),  is  pertinent: 

"  Nearly  a  month  before,  Lincoln  in  a  private  letter  ac- 
curately foreshadowed  Dauglas's  course  on  this  ques- 
tion. 'You  shall  have  hard  work  to  get  him  directly  to 
the  point   whether   a   territorial    legislature   has   or   has 


2n  NOTES 

not  the  power  to  exclude  slavery.  But  if  yoU  succeed 
in  bringing  him  to  it — though  he  will  be  compelled  to 
say  it  possesses  no  such  power — he  will  instantly  take 
ground  that  slavery  cannot  actually  exist  in  the  ter* 
ritories  unless  the  people  desire  it  and  so  give  it  protec- 
tion by  territorial  legislation.  If  this  offends  the 
South,  he  will  let  it  offend  them,  as  at  all  events  he 
means  to  hold  on  to  his  chances  in  Illinois.'  " 

The  question  was  put,  and  Douglas's  reply  formulated 
what  is  known  as  the  "  Freeport  theory  of  '  unfriendly 
legislation.'  "  In  a  subsequent  speech  in  Ohio  Lincoln 
paraphrased  it  as  a  policy  which  provided  that  "  a  thing 
may  lawfully  be  driven  away  from  a  place  where  it  has 
a  lawful  right  to  be."  (See  Douglas's  further  state- 
ment of  his  position  on  page  96:30  ct  seq.)  But  to  the 
whole  South  it  gave  mortal  offense,  for,  while  profess- 
ing allegiance  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  it  put  in  the 
hands  of  the  opponents  of  slavery  in  every  territory 
a  means  of  making  the  decision  of  none  effect.  Of 
this  "  Freeport  theory,"  to  which  Douglas  had  already 
given  local  expression  on  one  or  two  occasions,  a  lead- 
ing historian  says:  "This  answer  attracted  more  at- 
tention than  any  statement  of  Douglas  during  the 
campaign;  and,  while  he  could  not  have  been  elected 
Senator  without  taking  that  position,  the  enunciation 
of  the  doctrine  was  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  cement- 
ing the  division  in  the  Democratic  party.  The  influence 
of  this  meeting  at  Freeport  is  an  example  of  the 
greater  interest  incited  by  a  joint  debate  than  by  an 
ordinary  canvass,  and  illustrates  the  effectiveness  of 
the  Socratic  method  of  reasoning.  During  this  same 
campaign  Douglas  had  twice  before  declared  the  same 
doctrine  in  expressions  fully  as  plain  and  forcible, 
but  without  creating  any  particular  remark;  while  now 
the  country  resounded  with  discussions  of  the  Free- 
port  theory  of  '  unfriendly  legislation.' "  (J.  F. 
Rhodes:  Hist,  of  U.  S.,  ii.  p.  328.) 


NOTES  273 

Douglas  never  regained  the  Southern  support  lost 
as  a  consequence  of  this  reply.  The  feeling  of  the 
South  toward  him  is  expressed  in  this  utterance  from 
a  speech  by  Senator  Benjamin  of  Louisiana  in  the  Sen- 
ate, May  22,  i860:  "  It  is  impossible  that  confidence  thus 
lost  can  be  restored.  On  what  ground  has  that  con- 
fidence been  forfeited,  and  why  is  it  that  we  now  refuse 
to  him*  our  support  and  fellowship?     .     .    . 

"We  accuse  him  for  this,  to  wit:  that  having  bar- 
gained with  us  upon  a  point  upon  which  we  were  at 
issue  that  it  should  be  considered  a  judicial  point;  that 
he  would  abide  by  the  decision;  that  he  would  act  under 
the  decision,  and  consider  it  a  doctrine  of  the  party;  that 
having  said  that  to  us  here  in  the  Senate,  he  went 
home,  and  under  the  stress  of  a  local  election,  his  knees 
gave  way;  his  whole  person  trembled.  His  adversary 
stood  upon  principle  and  was  beaten;  and  lo!  he  is 
the  candidate  of  a  mighty  party  for  the  Presidency  of 
the  United  States.  The  Senator  from  Illinois  faltered. 
He  got  the  prize  for  which  he  faltered;  but  lo!  the  grand 
prize  of  his  ambition  to-day  slips  from  his  grasp  because 
of  his  faltering  in  his  former  contest,  and  his  success 
in  the  canvass  for  the  Senate,  purchased  for  an  ignoble 
price,  has  cost  him  the  loss  of  the  Presidency  of  the 
United  States." 

36:  12.  I  hope  Mr.  Lincoln  deems  my  answer  satis- 
factory. Observe  the  splendid  assurance  which  char- 
acterizes Douglas's  reply  in  this  destructive  dilemma, 
strongest  here  where  his  position  is  logically  weakest. 
(See  Lincoln's  reply  at  Alton,  199-201.) 

36:  15.  In  relation  to  Mr.  Chase's  amendment.  In 
reply  to  Lincoln's  allegation,  26:8.  (See  note  on 
same  passage.) 

38:  13.  Question  3.  If  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  shall  decide  that  states  cannot  exclude 
slavery  from  their  limits,  are  you  in  favor  of  acquiescing 
in,  adopting,  and  following  such  decision  as  a  rule  of 


274  NOTES 

political  action?  If  the  same  question  had  been  asked 
in  1830  or  1840  regarding  a  hypothetical  decision  that 
territories,  instead  of  states,  could  not  exclude  slavery 
from  their  limits,  it  would  hardly  have  seemed  more 
startling.  (See  Johnston:  American  Orations,  iii.  388.) 
Among  the  most  embarrassing  aspects  of  Lincoln's 
position  v^as  that  which  required  him  to  attack  a  de- 
cision of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  It 
was  theoretically  easy  to  maintain  that  the  decision 
was  law,  and  must  be  recognized  as  such  while  it 
existed,  but  that  it  was  wrong  in  principle  and  would 
ultimately  cease  to  be  law.  But  the  position  was  a 
hard  one  to  maintain  through  a  series  of  debates,  for 
the  American  people  have  always  been  quick  to  resent 
any  criticism  of  the  decrees  of  their  highest  judicial 
tribunal. 

Hence  Lincoln  reveals  good  strategy  by  anticipating 
Douglas's  attack,  and  seeking  to  make  Douglas  meet 
the  troublesome  issue  in  an  analogous  form,  first. 
Properly  enough,  however,  since  he  has  always  denied 
the  existence  of  any  conspiracy  to  introduce  slavery 
into  the  states,  Douglas  refuses  to  admit  that  such  a 
decision  is  possible,  and  thus  declines  to  assume  the 
burden  offered  him.  Lincoln  returns  to  the  matter  in 
the  Galesburgh  debate  (p.  118.)     See  also  note  on  139:2. 

39:3.  Seward,  and  Hale,  and  Wilson.  William  H. 
Seward,  Senator  from  New  York,  was  at  this  time  the 
National  Republican  leader;  later  he  was  Lincoln's  chief 
competitor  for  the  presidential  nomination,  but  was 
Secretary  of  State  in  his  rival's  cabinet  throughout  the 
Civil  War."  John  P.  Hale  and  Henry  Wilson  were 
Senators  from  New  Hampshire  and  Massachusetts, 
respectively. 

39:7.  Mr.  Toombs  of  Georgia.  Robert  Toombs  was 
a  leader  of  the  secession  forces  in  the  Senate  during 
the  years  just  before  the  Civil  War — one  of  the  ablest, 
most  uncompromising  and   aggressive   statesmen,   and  one 


NOTES  27S 

of  the  most  eloquent  orators  of  his  party,  honest  and  out- 
spoken. 

39:26.  Question  4.  Are  you  in  favor  of  acquiring 
additional  territory,  in  disregard  of  how  such  acquisition 
may  effect  the  nation  on  the  slavery  question?  This 
question  closely  correlates  with  Question  7  in  the  series 
propounded  by  Judge  Douglas  at  Ottawa.  (See  17:1, 
ct  scq.)  The  significance  of  this  question  and  Lin- 
coln's attitude  toward  the  matter  involved  is  made 
plain  in  Lincoln's  discussion  at  Galesburgh  (pp.  125- 
129).  Among  those  indifferent  to  the  spread  of  slavery 
Douglas's  reply  was  no  doubt  as  popular  then  as 
similar  doctrines  have  been  since.  From  the  point 
of  view  of  those  believers  in  national  expansion — who 
could,  like  Douglas,  close  their  eyes  to  the  moral  evil 
of  slavery,  Lincoln  was  here  forced  to  the  unpopular 
side. 

42:5.  Lovejoy,  Farnsworth,  and  Fred.  Douglass. 
Noted  Abolitionists,  all.  Owen  Lovejoy  (181 1-64)  was 
a  Republican  representative  in  Congress  from  1856  to 
1862.  John  F.  Farnsworth  was  a  lawyer  of  Chicago — 
who  served  three  terms  in  Congress.  Frederick  Doug- 
lass (1817-1895),  a  mulatto  ex-slave,  was  widely  known 
as  an  orator  in  the  anti-slavery  cause. 

43:7.     A    platform  .  adopted   by   the    Black 

Republican  Party  at  Springfield  in  1854.  Douglas  re- 
plies to  the  charge  of  Lincoln  made  in  his  opening 
speech  (21:20.  ct  scq.).     See  the  annotation  thereon. 

43:25.  He  declared  the  Mexican  War  to  be  unjust 
and  infamous,  and  would  not  support  it.  In  general  the 
Mexican  War  was  condemned  throughout  the  North, 
except  by  those  who  were  favorable  to  the  extension  of 
slavery.  In  the  Charleston  debate  of  Sept.  18,  Lincoln 
replied  to  the  charge  of  Douglas  as  follows: 

"  [Here  Mr.  Lincoln  turned  to  the  crowd  on  the 
platform,  and  selecting  Hon.  Orlando  B.  Ficklin,  led 
him  forward,  and  said: — ] 


276  NOTES 

"  I  do  not  mean  to  do  anything  with  Mr.  Ficklin 
except  to  present  his  face  and  tell  you  that  he  person- 
ally  knows  it  to  be  a  lie.  He  was  a  member  of  Congress 
at  the  only  time  I  was  in  Congress,  and  knows  that 
whenever  there  was  an  attempt  to  procure  a  vote 
of  mine  which  would  endorse  the  origin  and  justice  of 
the  w^ar,  I  refused  to  give  such  endorsement,  and  voted 
against  it;  but  I  never  voted  against  the  supplies  for 
the  army  and  he  knows,  as  well  as  Judge  Douglas, 
that  whenever  a  dollar  was  asked  by  way  of  compensa- 
tion, otherwise,  for  the  benefit  of  the  soldiers,  /  gave 
all   the  votes   that  Ficklin   or  Douglas  did,   and  perhaps 


more." 


Mr.  Ficklin  thereupon  publicly  corroborated  Mr. 
Lincoln's  statement. 

47:8.  The  following  (Rockford)  platform.  This 
platform  is  almost  identical  with  the  alleged  Springfield 
platform  of  1854,  printed  on  page  260,  over  which  the 
original  dispute  arose. 

49:30.  The  Crittenden-Montgomery  Bill.  This 
measure  is  described  in  the  annotation  upon  Lincoln's 
first  question.     (See  p.  268.) 

50:6.  The  Black  Republican  Party.  The  organiza- 
tion of  the  Republican  party  of  the  disrupted  elements 
of  the  Northern  Whigs,  Anti-Nebraska  Democrats,  and 
Free-Soilers,  began  in  local  centers  in  1854.  Its  first 
national  convention  was  held  in  1856,  and  nominated 
Fremont  and  Da\-ton  as  candidates  for  President 
and  Vice-President  Opposition  to  the  extension  of 
slavery  to  the  territories  was  the  strong  tie  which 
bound  the  members  of  the  new  part>'  to  a  single 
platform. 

The  charge  of  a  corrupt  bargain  between  Trumbull 
and  Lincoln  to  capture  the  organization  of  the  new 
party,  abolitionize  it,  and  divide  the  spoils,  which 
Douglas  now  makes  with  considerable  elaboration,  is 
denied  by  Lincoln  in  his  rejoinder  and  in  other  speeches 


NOTES 


-/  / 


in  the  campaign.  The  charge  rests  upon  no  evidence. 
(See  note  on  54:  17.) 

50:27.  Giddings.  Joshua  R.  Giddings  (1795-1864) 
was  one  of  the  ablest  anti-slavery  leaders  in  Congress 
during  most  of  the  period  from  i8j8  to  1859. 

51 :  3  Clay  and  Webster.  These  statesmen  were  the 
leaders  during  this  period  of  the  Southern  and  Northern 
Whigs  respectively.  The  Whig  party,  both  North  and 
South,  believed  that  the  preservation  of  the  Union  was 
of  supreme  importance.  To  ensure  this  they  favored 
compromises  with  the  slave  power.  The  Northern 
Whigs  were  not,  like  the  Democrats,  blind  to  the 
right  or  wrong  of  slavery.  They  believed  it,  however, 
subordinate  in  importance  to  the  maintenance  of  the 
Union. 

51:7.  A  bank,  .  .  .  distribution,  the  specie  cir- 
cular, (a)  The  attempt  to  renew  the  charter  of  the 
Second  United  States  Bank,  which  expired  in  i8j6,  was 
defeated  by  President  Jackson,  and  his  veto  was  sus- 
tained at  the  polls  in  the  succeeding  national  election, 
(b)  The  proposition  to  distribute  the  surplus  of  the 
national  Treasury  among  the  states  was  at  various 
times  a  party  issue,  (c)  The  Specie  Circular,  issued 
in  1836,  required  that  pa>-ments  for  public  lands  should, 
in  all  ordinarj-  cases,  be  made  in  gold  and  silver.  It 
was  opposed  by  those  who  were  interested  in  the 
prevailing  inflation  of  the  time,  and  in  credit 
schemes. 

51:13.  Cass  .  .  .  FiUmore.  Cass  was  a  Demo- 
crat, and  Fillmore  a  Whig, 

52:7.  John  Wentworth.  John  Wentworth  (1815- 
88)  was  editor  of  the  Chicago  Democrat  from  1836  to 
1861,  and  a  representative  in  Congress  for  three  terms. 
Beginning  a  Democrat,  he  became  a  Whig,  and  later  a 
Republican  under  the  influence  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
legislation. 

54:8.     General    Shields.     General    James    -\.    Shields 


278  NOTES 

(1810-79),  a  soldier  in  the  Mexican  War,  was  United 
States  Senator  from  Illinois  from  1849  to  1855.  Later 
he  served  with  distinction  in  the  Civil  War.  He  is  said 
to  have  been  the  only  general  who  ever  defeated 
"  Stonewall "  Jackson. 

54:  17.  When  Lincoln  was  beaten  for  Shield's  place. 
Douglas  never  afforded  any  evidence  to  sustain  this 
charge.  The  facts  as  recorded  in  Morse's  Life  of  Lin- 
coln (Vol.  i.  p.  96)  are  as  follows:  On  Feb.  8,  1855, 
the  legislature  began  to  ballot  for  Senator.  The  first 
ballot  resulted:  Lincoln  (Whig),  45,  Shields  (Douglas 
Democrat),  41,  Trumbull  (Anti-Nebraska  Democrat), 
5,  Scattering,  5.  After  several  ballots,  Lincoln  fell  to 
IS  votes  and  Trumbull  rose  to  35,  but  Matteson,  who 
had  been  substituted  for  Shields,  had  47  ballots,  and 
his  election  was  imminent.  "Lincoln's  weakness  lay 
in  the  fact  that  the  Abolitionists  had  too  loudly  praised 
him,  and  publicly  counted  him  as  one  of  themselves." 
For  this  reason  five  Democrats,  supporters  of  Trumbull, 
were  as  bitter  against  Lincoln  as  they  were  against 
the  candidate  of  Douglas,  Matteson.  "  Lincoln  could 
count  upon  his  fifteen  adherents  to  the  extremity;  but 
the  five  anti-Douglas  Democrats  were  equally  staunch 
against  him,  so  that  his  chance  was  evidently  gone. 
Trumbull  was  a  Democrat,  but  he  was  opposed  to  the 
policy  of  Douglas's  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill;  his  follow- 
ing was  not  altogether  trustworthy,  and  a  trifling  de- 
fection from  it  seemed  likely  to  occur  and  make  out 
Matteson's  majority.  Lincoln  pondered  briefly;  then 
subjecting  all  else  to  the  great  principle  of  'anti- 
Nebraska,'  he  urged  his  friends  to  transfer  their  votes 
to  Trumbull.  With  grumbling  and  reluctance  they  did 
so,  and  by  this  aid  on  the  tenth  ballot,  Trumbull  was 
elected." 

59:  19.  Either  Mr.  Lincoln  was  then  committed  to 
those  propositions  .  .  .  violated  his  pledge.  Is  the 
alternative  fairly  proved? 


NOTES  279 

61:19.  "  Tn  my  opinion  it  will  not  cease  until"  .  .  . 
See  the  opening  paragraph  of  the  Springiicld  Speech,  and 
the   annotation    thereon. 

63:  20.  I  will  retire  in  shame  from  the  United  States 
Senate.  Note  the  skill  of  DouKlas  in  developing  pre- 
judice against  his  opponent.  Is  the  method  justifiable 
as  here  used? 

64:  19.  Mr.  Buchanan  was  ...  in  England. 
James  Buchanan  was  ^Minister  to  England  from  1853 
to  1856. 

MR.  LINCOLN'S  REJOINDER 

72:22.  Judge  Douglas  says  he  made  a  charge  upon 
the  Editor  of  the  Washington  "  Union  "  alone.  See  the 
annotation  upon  the  passage  on  32:2. 

73:  13.  He  had  an  eye  farther  north  than  he  has 
to-day.  Douglas's  revolt  from  the  Administration  on 
the  Lecompton  matter  aroused  a  suspicion  on  the  part 
of  many  that  he  intended  to  become  a  Republican. 
See  77:31,  et  seq. 


THE  FIFTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  GALESBURGH 

October  7,  1858 

The  debate  at  Freeport,  read  to-day,  clearly  reveals 
Lincoln's  supremacy  in  the  great  struggle.  Events 
have  long  vindicated  the  soundness  of  his  moral  and 
political  philosophy,  and  the  ultimate  wisdom  of  his 
strategy.  Yet  at  the  hour  anxiety  and  alarm  filled 
the  minds  of  his  advisers.  "After  the  debate  was 
finished,"  says  Mr.  Horace  White  (Herndon's  Life  of 
Lincoln,  ii.  no)  "we  Republicans  did  not  feel  very 
happy.  We  held  the  same  opinion  that  Mr.  Judd 
and  Dr.  Ray  had — that  Douglas's  answer  (to  Lincoln's 
second  question)  had  probably  saved  him  from  defeat. 


28o  NOTES 

We  did  not  look  forward,  and  we  did  not  look  South, 
and  even  if  we  had  done  so,  we  were  too  much  enlisted 
in  this  campaign  to  swap  it  for  another  one  which  was 
two  years  distant." 

Between  the  debate  at  Freeport  and  that  at  Gales- 
burgh,  besides  numerous  individual  campaign  speeches 
by  each  candidate,  occurred  the  joint  debates  at  Jones- 
boro,  on  September  15,  and  at  Charleston,  on  September 
18.  Jonesboro  was  in  Southern  Illinois,  and  strong  in 
pro-slavery  sentiment.  However,  the  place  was  a 
stronghold  of  the  "  Danites  "  or  Buchanan  Democrats, 
and  therefore  favorable  to  neither  of  the  candidates. 
The  audience  was  small  and  there  was  little  enthusiasm. 
The  debate  at  Charleston,  in  a  region  where  the  can- 
didates had  about  equal  following,  drew  an  enormous 
crowd.  The  fever  of  the  campaign  was  now  well-nigh 
at  its  height.  "  Over  long,  weary  miles  of  hot  dusty 
prairie  [writes  an  eye-witness],  the  processions  of 
eager  partisans  come  on  foot,  or  horseback,  in  wagons 
drawn  by  horses  or  mules  .  .  .  pushing  on  in 
clouds  of  dust  under  a  blazing  sun  .  .  .  waiting  in 
anxious  groups  for  hours  at  the  places  of  speaking." 
In  this  debate  Lincoln  produced  documents  to  prove 
that  Douglas  had  in  1856  tried  to  bring  Kansas  into  the 
Union  without  allowing  her  people  to  vote  upon  their 
constitution.  Douglas  was  hard  pressed,  and  in 
the  opinion  of  his  friends  Lincoln  scored  a  distinct 
victory. 

Nearly  three  weeks  later  the  contestants  met  at 
Galesburgh.  Mr.  White  (Herndon's  Life  of  Lincoln, 
ii.   123)   describes  the  circumstances  as  follows: 

"  Here  we  had  the  largest  audience  of  the  whole  series 
and  the  worst  day,  the  weather  being  very  cold  and 
raw,  notwithstanding  which,  the  people  flocked  from 
far  and  near.  One  feature  of  the  Republican  procession 
was  a  division  of  one  hundred  ladies  and  an  equal 
number  of  gentlemen  on  horseback  as  a  special  escort 


NOTES  281 

to  the  carriage  containing  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  whole 
country  seemed  to  be  swarming  and  the  crowd  stood 
three  hours  in  the  college  grounds,  in  a  cutting  wind, 
listening  to  the  debate.  Mr.  Lincoln's  speech  at  Gales- 
burgh  was,  in  my  judgment,  the  best  of  the  series." 

The  student  should  notice  the  altering  status  of  the 
speakers  as  the  campaign  reaches  its  height.  Douglas, 
with  unabated  assurance,  continues  the  lines  of  attack 
and  defense  which  he  had  marked  out  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  campaign.  But  in  Lincoln  is  growing  a 
profounder  sense  of  the  tremendous  and  universal  im- 
port of  the  real  issue  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  party 
differences.  With  skill  rapidly  disciplined  under  the 
stress  and  shock  of  the  attack  of  the  greatest  parlia- 
mentary debater  of  his  time,  Lincoln  discards  more 
and  more  whatever  is  local  and  personal  in  his  argu- 
ment. Before  his  clarifying  vision  loom  with  growing 
distinctness  the  larger  aspects  of  the  great  issue — 
matters,  not  of  personalities  or  politics,  but  of  principle, 
phases  of  the  national  and  universal  issue — the  great 
moral  wrong  of  slavery. 

The  debates  at  Galesburgh  present  two  of  these  larger 
aspects  of  the  struggle  not  emphasized  in  the  Freeport 
debate.  They  are  the  questions  whether  negroes  have 
any  share  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  and 
whether  the  Republican  party  represents  a  sectional, 
instead  of  a  national  movement.  Aside  from  these  two 
vital  aspects  of  the  debate  the  topics  of  discussion  at 
Galesburgh  are  the  same  as  those  at  Freeport.  In  ad- 
dition to  analyzing  new  arguments,  the  student  should 
therefore  concern  himself,  aside  from  the  parry  and 
thrust  of  each  individual  encounter,  with  the  diminish- 
ing or  growing  emphasis  upon  specific  issues  as  the 
campaign  unfolds  itself;  with  the  appearance  and 
manipulation  of  fresh  evidence;  with  tendencies  on  the 
part  of  either  debater  to  shift  his  ground,  or  to  alter 
the  character  or  form  of  his  argument  as  he  approaches 


282  NOTES 

audiences  of  different  sympathies,  and  as  the  campaign 
becomes  more  intense.  From  this  point  onward  the 
annotation  will  seek  only  to  correlate  matters  under 
discussion,  to  explain  the  few  matters  of  historical 
reference  not  already  explained,  and  to  be  merely  sug- 
gestive upon  points  of  logical  or  persuasive  process. 
The  arguments  upon  the  questions  whether  negroes 
are  included  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and 
upon  the  charge  of  sectionalism,  are  so  clear  and  uni- 
versal in  their  character  as  to  need  little  special  annota- 
tion. 

MR.  DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH 

80:  17.  The  Lecompton  Constitution.  What  exigency 
of  the  campaign  induces  Douglas  to  devote  nearly 
one-third  of  his  opening  speech  in  this  debate  to  the 
Lecompton  question,  upon  which  he  and  Lincoln  are 
in  essential  agreement?  (Compare  Lincoln's  speech  at 
Alton,  p.  166.) 

83 :  24.  The  effort  has  been  made  ...  by  certain 
postmasters.  See  the  annotation  upon  33:7.  (Lincoln's 
first  question  to  Douglas.) 

84: 16.  Groesbeck  and  Pendleton  and  Cox.  (i) 
William  S.  Groesbeck  (1815-1877),  was  a  Democratic 
representative  from  Ohio  from  1857  to  1859.  At  the 
impeachment  of  President  Johnson  in  1868  he  was 
leading  counsel  for  the  defense.  (2)  George  H.  Pendel- 
ton  (1825-1889)  was  at  this  time  a  Democratic  rep- 
resentative. In  i860  he  lacked  2  1-2  votes  of  the  nomi- 
nation of  his  party  for  the  Presidency.  (3)  S.  S.  Cox 
(1824-1889)  lived  a  long,  varied,  and  conspicuous  politi- 
cal and  diplomatic  career.  From  1857  onward  he  served 
three  terms  in  Congress. 

84:21.  The  Joneses  of  Pennsylvania.  One  of  the 
"Joneses  of  Pennsylvania"  was  Jehu  G.  Jones  (1811- 
78),  a  representative  from  1851-8,  and  later  minister  to 
Austria. 


NOTES  283 

87:8.  The  Republican  party  is  availing  itself  of  un- 
worthy means,  lias  Douglas  established  the  truth  of 
his  charge?     Is  it  plausible? 

87:30.  But  now  you  have  a  sectional  organization. 
For  another  presentation  of  this  issue  by  Uuuglas,  see 
the  Alton  debate,  p.  144,  and  Lincoln's  speech  in  reply, 
p.  179;  see  also  especially  the  Cooper  Institute  Address,  p. 
230. 

88:  16.     The  Old  Dominion.     Virginia. 

89:3.  Garrison.  William  Lloyd  Garrison  (1805- 
1879)  "was  perhaps  the  most  radical  and  conspicuous  of 
the  New  England  Abolitionists.  He  was  almost  anar- 
chistic in  his  denunciation  of  the  Constitution  as  "  a 
Covenant  with  Death,  and  an  agreement  with  Hell." 

89:  30.  The  doctrine  of  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence. Douglas  recurs  to  this  argument  at  Alton.  (See 
page  163,  and  especially  Lincoln's  Reply,  pp.  171  to  178.) 

97:3.  How  is  it  that  in  a  territory  the  peo-ple  can  do 
as  they  please  on  the  slavery  question  under  the  Dred 
Scott  decision?  See  annotation  of  35:12,  Lincoln's 
second  interrogatory  to  Douglas. 

98:12.  Mr.  Orr  of  South  CaroHna.  James  L.  Orr 
(1822-1873)  was  a  representative  from  1848  to  1858,  and  a 
conspicuous  Southern  leader. 

MR.    LINCOLN'S    REPLY 

Does  Mr.  Lincoln  gain  in  confidence  and  assurance 
since  the  Freeport  debate?  Are  there  gains  in  other 
respects?  Does  he  seek  merely  to  answer  his  op- 
ponent now? 

102:26.  He  spoke  .  .  .  not  venturing  to  use  the 
word  Democrat.  What  condition  continues  to  embar- 
rass Douglas?  Why  should  Lincoln  have  hesitated  to 
use  the  word  Republican  in  all  circumstances  of  the 
campaign? 

103:2.    The    National    Democracy.    Douglas's    rupture 


284  NOTES 

with  the  National  Democracy  occurred  in  1857  over  the 
Lecompton  issue. 

106:4.  The  people  of  Chicago  would  not  let  Judge 
Douglas  preach  a  certain  favorite  doctrine.  On  Sept. 
I.  1854.  Senator  Douglas  addressed  a  mass  meeting  in 
Chicago  in  defense  of  his  Kansas-Nebraska  Act.  Pub- 
lic sentiment  was  bitter  against  him.  "  When  the  time 
came,  flags  at  half-mast,  and  the  dismal  tolling  of  church 
bells  welcomed  him.  A  vast  and  silent  crowd  was  gath- 
ered, but  not  to  hear  him.  Hisses  and  groans  broke  in 
upon  his  opening  sentences.  Hour  after  hour,  from 
eight  o'clock  until  midnight  he  stood  before  them;  time 
and  again,  as  the  uproar  lessened,  his  voice  combated 
it;  but  they  would  not  let  him  speak.  .  .  .  On  the 
way  home  his  carriage  was  set  upon  and  he  was  in 
danger  of  his  life."  (W.  G.  Brown:  Stephen  A.  Doug- 
las, p.  96.) 

107:30.  The  Compromise  of  1850.  See  Introduction. 
Lincoln's  explanation  which  now  follows  is  accurate 
and  detailed. 

112:29.  He  had  .  .  .  more  to  do  with  .  .  .  the 
Lecompton  Constitution  than  Buchanan  had.  See  the 
reference  to  the  Charleston  debate  in  the  preliminary 
note   upon  the   Galesburgh  debate. 

113:  II.  The  opponents  of  the  Democratic  party  were 
divided.  Fremont  was  the  Republican  nominee;  Fill- 
more, that  of  the  Know-Nothings  and  Whigs. 

113:30.  A  set  of  resolutions  .  .  .  in  October,  1854. 
See  the  Freeport  debate  (Lincoln)  21:20  ef  seq.  and 
(Douglas)  43-49,  with  annotation  upon  the  former 
reference. 

118:  13.  If  the  Supreme  Court  .  .  .  shall  decide 
.  .  .  are  you  in  favor  of  acquiescing.  See  38: 13  et 
seq.  and  the   annotation  thereon. 

119:30.  Nothing  in  the  constitution  of  any  state  can 
destroy.  The  precision  of  Lincoln's  logic  finds  in  this 
syllogism  an  excellent  exemplification.  , 


NOTES  285 

T2i:i8.  The  new  Dred  Scott  decision.  See  the 
Springfield  Speech  (8:  17,)  and  the  latter  half  of  the 
annotation  upon   (31:2.) 

122:  I.  General  Jackson  ,  .  ,  the  political  obliga- 
tion of  a  Supreme  Court  decision.  In  1832,  General 
Jackson  praciically  refused  to  enforce  a  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  against  the  state  of  Georgia. 

122:  12.  The  Cincinnati  platform.  This  Democratic 
platform  of  1856  affirmed  that  Congress  cannot  charter 
a  National  Bank,  though  the  Supreme  Court  had 
decided  that  the  Bank,  whose  charter  expired  in  1836, 
was  constitutional. 

122:  16.  He  himself  was  one  ...  in  breaking 
down  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  state  of  Illinois.  In 
1841,  a  Democratic  legislature  reconstructed  the  legis- 
lature in  such  a  way  as  to  increase  the  number  of 
judges.  Douglas,  less  than  twenty-eight  years  old,  was 
named  for  one  of  the  new  places. 

125:  \C^.  Are  you  opposed  to  the  acquisition  of  further 
territory,  unless  slavery  is  prohibited?  See  20:5,  and 
annotation  thereon. 

125:25:  Are  you  in  favor  of  acquiring  territory  in 
disregard  of    .    .    .    slavery?    See  30:  jO.  and  annotation. 

MR.    DOUGLAS'S    REJOINDER 

135:  Does  Mr.  Lincoln  wish  to  push  these  things 
to  the  point  of  personal  difTficulties  here?  Has  Douglas 
really  answered   Lincoln  on  this  much  vexed  issue? 

136:25.  And  yet  Lincoln  .  .  .  will  not  .  .  . 
sanction.  .  .  .  the  doctrine  of  no  mfore  slave  states. 
Is  this  a  fair  restatement  of  Lincoln's  position  at  Free- 
port  (18:5.)? 

139:2.  Suppose  he  succeeds  in  destroying  public 
confidence  in  the  court.  In  reference  to  the  nature  of 
his  opposition  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Mr.  Lincoln 
in  his  opening  speech  in  the  debate  at  Quincy.  one 
week  later,  made  the  following  statement : 


NOTES 

'^  We  oppose  the  Dred  Scott  decision  in  a  certain  way, 
npon  which  I  onght  perhaps  to  address  you  a  few 
words.  We  do  not  propose  that  when  Dred  Scott  has 
been  decided  to  be  a  slaTe  by  the  court,  we,  as  a  mob, 
will  decide  him  to  be  free.  We  do  not  propose  that, 
when  any  other  one,  or  one  thousand,  shall  be  decided 
by  that  court  to  be  slaves,  we  will  in  any  violent  way 
disturb  the  rights  of  property  thus  settled;  but  we 
nevertheless  do  oppose  that  decision  as  a  political  rule 
which  shall  be  binding  on  the  voter  to  vote  for  nobody 
who  thinks  it  wrong,  which  shall  be  binding  on  the 
members  of  Congress  or  the  President  to  favor  no 
measure  that  does  not  actually  concur  with  the  princi- 
ples of  that  decision.  We  do  not  propose  to  be  bound 
by  it  as  a  political  rule  in  that  way,  because  we  think 
it  lays  the  foundation,  not  merely  of  enlarging  and 
spreading  out  what  we  consider  an  evil,  but  it  laj-s  the 
foimdatioiis  for  spreading  that  evil  into  the  states 
themselves.  We  propose  so  resisting  it  as  to  have  it 
reversed  if  we  can,  and  a  new  judicial  rule  established 
fipon  this  subject-" 


THE  SEVENTH  JOINT  DEBATE,  AT  ALTON 

Ottober  15,  1858 

On  October  13  Mr.  Lincoln  met  Douglas,  in  the  sixth 
debate  of  the  series,  at  Quincy.  Like  Galesburgh,  the 
region  was  one  in  which  each  of  the  candidates  had  a 
good  following.  Lincoln,  with  continually  increasing 
insistence,  forced  the  issue  of  the  right  or  wrong  of 
slavery.  Doagias,  indifferent,  always,  to  this  issue,  or 
feigning  to  be  indifferent,  generally  chose  to  ignore 
it,  bat  in  this  debate,  he  specifically  declined  in  the  follow- 
ing language  to  discuss  it: 

"He  tells  you  that  I  will  not  argue  the  question 
wbdibeT  slavery  is  rig^t  or  wrong.     I  will  teU  you  why 


NOTES  2S7 

I  will  not  do  it  I  hold  that  under  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  each  state  of  this  Union  has  a  right 
to  do  as  it  pleases  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  In 
Illinois  we  have  exercised  that  sovereign  right  by  pro- 
hibiting slavery  within  our  own  limits.  I  approve  of  that 
line  of  policy.  We  have  done  our  whole  duty  in  Illinois. 
We  have  gone  as  far  as  we  had  a  right  to  go  under 
the  Constitution  of  our  common  country.  It  is  none  of 
our  business  whether  slavery  exists  in  Missouri  or  not. 
Missouri  is  a  sovereign  state  of  this  Union,  and  has 
the  same  right  to  decide  the  slavery-  question  for  her- 
self that  Illinois  has  to  decide  it  for  herself.  Hence  I 
do  not  choose  to  occupy  the  time  allotted  to  me  in  dis- 
cussing a  question  that  we  have  no  right  to  act  upon." 

The  student  may  now  compare  the  issues  in  this 
debate  with  those  of  the  Freeport  meeting.  Upon 
what  issues  do  they  still  meet  each  other  squarely? 
Does  either  of  them  give  time  to  discussion  of  matters 
upon  which  the  debaters  themselves  are  in  agreement? 
If  so,  for  what  reason?  To  what  extent  do  they  diverge 
froiTi  one  another,  in  failing  to  meet  squarely  upon 
what  one  or  the  other  insists  are  the  real  issues  of  the 
campaign?  Does  either  of  the  speakers  show  any 
motive  in  his  debating  beyond  defeating  his  opponent 
in  the  immediate  campaign?  If  such  a  motive  exists, 
in  what  terms  may  it  be  defined?  Does  Lincoln  in 
this  speech  in  Southern  Illinois  give  substantiation  to 
Douglas's  charge  that  he  has  one  doctrine  for  one  part 
of  the  state,  and  another  for  a  different  part?  What 
likenesses  or  contrasts  exist  in  the  kinds  of  persuasion 
which  arise  in  this  debate  from  the  character  of  the  two 
speakers?     Compare  their  literary  styles. 

"The  campaign."  says  Mr.  Horace  White,  "was  now 
drawing  rapidly  to  a  close.  Everybody  who  had  borne 
an  active  part  in  it  was  pretty  well  fagged  out,  except 
Mr.  Lincoln.  He  showed  no  signs  of  fatigue.  Doug- 
las's voice  was  worn  down  to  extreme  huskiness.     He 


288  NOTES 

took  great  pains  to  save  what  was  left  of  his  throat, 
but  to  listen  to  him  moved  one's  pity.  Nevertheless,  he 
went  on  doggedly,  bravely,  and  with  a  jaunty  air  of 
confidence.  Mr.  Lincoln's  voice  was  as  clear  and  far- 
reaching  as  it  was  .  .  .  two  months  before — a  high 
pitched  tenor,  almost  a  falsetto,  that  could  be  heard 
at  a  greater  distance  than  Douglas's  heavy  basso." 
The  attendance  at  the  debate  w^as  the  smallest  of 
the  series  except  that  at  Jonesboro — and,  as  at  that 
place,  the  audience  held  strong  pro-slavery  opinions. 
For  a  second  time  Douglas  was  "  trotting  Lincoln 
down "  to  the  abiding  place  of  pro-slavery  sentiment 
in  Illinois. 

In  this  debate  Lincoln,  for  the  first  time  in  the 
speeches  of  this  volume,  deals  with  the  constitutionality 
of  slavery.  In  this  debate,  too,  he  deals  less  than  on  any 
other  with  issues  arising  out  of  the  politics  of  the  day; — 
more  clearly  than  in  any  other  debate  he  builds  his 
argument  upon  the  high  moral  plane  of  the  right  or 
wrong  of  slavery. 

146:  22.  Imagine  .  .  .  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  a 
member  of  the  Convention  that  framed  the  Constitu- 
tion. Compare  this  argument,  and  Lincoln's  reply, 
beginning  p.  182,  with  the  opening  sections  of  the 
speech  at  Cooper  Institute. 

148:2.  Slavery  was  abolished  in  .  .  .  New  Jer- 
sey. New  Jersey  abolished  slavery  in  1804,  being  the 
seventh  and  last  of  the  original  thirteen  states  so  to  do. 

148:25.  The  admission  of  .  .  .  slave  states.  See 
18:5,  and  annotation. 

144: 17.  His  proposition  .  .  .  Union  could  not 
exist  as  our  fathers  made  it.  See  Douglas,  87:30,  and 
Lincoln's  reply,  105:13;  also,  the  Cooper  Institute 
Address,  230. 

151:  I.  The  contract  with  Texas.  In  1845,  Congress 
by  joint  action  "  passed  a  resolution  providing  for  the 
admission  of  Texas,  and,  with  her  consent,  the  forma- 


NOTES  289 

tion  of  four  additional  states  out  of  the  territory  in 
states  formed  north  of  the  line  of  36°  30'  north  latitude, 
slavery  to  be  prohibited.  .  .  .  Texas  accepted  the 
terms  and  at  the  next  session  of  Congress  was  formally 
admitted."     (Rhodes'  History  of  U.  S.,  i.  85.) 

152:7.  The  Lecompton  Constitution  (and  Kansas.) 
See   Introduction;    also,  33:7,   and   annotation   thereon. 

158:30.  Nullification.  In  1832,  maintaining  that  a 
state  can  for  its  own  purposes  annul  an  Act  of  Con- 
gress, South  Carolina  passed  the  famous  Ordinance  of 
Nullification,  declaring  that  acts  of  Congress  relating  to 
the  collection  of  tariffs  should  not  be  binding  in  the 
ports  of  that  state.  The  state  threatened  the  use  of 
force,  but  the  firm  stand  of  President  Jackson  saved 
the  day,  and  South  Carolina  rescinded  the  Ordinance 
on  March  2,  1833. 

162:  I.  Hon.  Jefferson  Davis.  The  subsequent  Presi- 
dent of  the  Confederacy  was  at  this  time  the  Senator 
from  Mississippi,  and  loader  of  his  party  in  the  Senate. 

163:25.  The  Abolition  party  thinks  that  under  the 
Declara.tion  .  .  .  the  negro  is  equal.  See  the  Gales- 
burgh  debate  (89:30),  and  Lincoln's  response  in  open- 
ing his  Reply  (loi). 

MR.    LINCOLN'S    REPLY 

167: 18.  The  valiant  advocate  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise. This  was  before  1854,  when  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill  was  presented. 

168:22.  The  Dred  Scott  decision  in  my  Springfield 
speech.     See  8:  17,  and  annotation. 

170:4.  I  desire  to  place  myself  in  connection  with 
Mr.  Clay,  as  nearly  right.  The  voters  to  whom  Mr. 
Lincoln  now  addresses  his  plea  are  old  line  Whigs, 
followers  of  Clay,  men  who  in  this  locality  may  have 
favored  slavery — but  considered  the  maintenance  of  the 
Union  of  more  importance. 


:29o  NOTES 

170:  IT.  He  read  upon  a  former  occasion  ...  a 
speech    ...    at  Chicago.     See  89  et  scq. 

171:30.  Negroes  were  not  included  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence.  See  89:30  et  seq.  in  Douglas's 
speech  at  Galesburgh,  and  Lincoln's  Reply  (101-102). 

179:22.  "We  are  now  far  into  the  fifth  year."  See 
i:  I,  and  annotation  upon  i:  12. 

180:23.  Mr.  Crittenden.  Senator  Crittenden  of  Ken- 
tucky, joint  author  of  the  Crittenden-Montgomery  Com- 
promise (see  annotation  upon  33:7)-  Crittenden  was 
a  Kentucky  Whig,  and  his  support  of  Douglas  in 
this  campaign  was  a  keen  disappointment  to  Mr. 
Lincoln. 

182:5.  Where  the  public  mind  should  rest  in  the 
beUef  that  it  was  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  Is 
Lincoln  distinct  upon  this  point?  Does  Lincoln  deal 
effectively  with  the  economic  aspects  of  slavery  or  with 
its  remedies? 

182:26.  Slavery  .  .  .  in  the  Constitution.  Seethe 
first  half  of  the  Cooper  Institute  address. 

189:12.  What  divided  the  great  Methodist  Church 
.  .  .  Presbyterian  General  Assembly.  Both  these 
denominations  were  divided  into  Northern  and  South- 
ern churches  during  the  anti-slavery  agitation. 

192:21.  The  real  issue  in  this  controversy.  Com- 
pare with  Douglas's  statement  (pp.  142-3). 

199:2.  Brooks  of  South  Carolina.  Preston  S. 
Brooks,  who  assaulted  Charles  Sumner  on  the  floor  of 
the  Senate,  on  May  22,  1856,  after  Senator  Sumner  had 
severely  arraigned  Senator  Butler  of  South  Carolina,  a 
relative  of  Brooks,  in  a  speech  on  the  Kansas  question. 

199:  By  the  invention  of  the  cotton-gin.  The  cot- 
ton-gin, invented  by  Eli  Whitney  in  1/93,  multiplied  the 
cotton-picking  capacity  of  a  slave  by  fifty.  The  result- 
ing demand  for  negro  labor  had  an  essential  bearing 
on  the  slavery  issue. 

199:20.    This    argument    .    .    .    sustains    the    Dreu 


NOTES  291 

Scott  decision  (and)  still  excludes  slavery.  Sec  35:  12 
and  annotation. 

201:5.  Most  of  us  believe  .  .  .  Congressional 
Fugitive  Slave  Law.     See  17:21  and  annotation. 

205:6.  The  lead  of  Corwin.  Thomas  Corwin  (1794- 
1865),  a  statesman  of  varied  and  important  service  from 
1830  till  his  death.  As  Whig  and  later  as  Republican 
he  served  as  Representative,  Senator,  Governor  of  his 
native  state  of  Ohio,  as  a  member  of  Taylor's  and 
Fillmore's  Cabinet. 

206:11.  Have  you  read  General  Singleton's  speech? 
This  is  "new  material  in  rebuttal." 


THE    COOPER    INSTITUTE    SPEECH 
Feb.  27,  i860 

With  the  conclusion  of  the  senatorial  campaign  of 
1858,  Mr.  Lincoln,  although  a  defeated  candidate,  had 
become  a  leader  of  national  significance.  Only  Seward, 
among  Republicans,  equaled  him  in  prestige.  The 
desire  to  see  and  hear  him  was  general  throughout  the 
East.  In  the  fall  of  1859  he  was  invited  to  deliver  a 
"  political  lecture "  before  the  Young  Men's  Central 
Republican  Union  of  New  York  City.  The  invitation 
was  accepted  and  the  address  was  given  in  Cooper 
Institute  on  Feb.  27,  i860,  before  a  large  audience  in 
which  were  many  of  the  most  influential  men  of  the 
city.  William  Cullen  Bryant  was  the  presiding  officer. 
"  Since  the  days  of  Clay  and  Webster,"  said  the  Tribune, 
"  no  man  has  spoken  to  a  larger  assemblage  of  the 
intellect  and  culture  of  the  city." 

But  the  curiosity  of  the  public  in  regard  to  Lincoln's 
personality  was  perhaps  equaled  by  his  own  wish  to 
test  his  arguments  and  his  personal  power  upon  the 
difi^erent  tradition  and  culture  of  an  Eastern  audience. 
His  address   was   more   laboriously   prepared   than   any 


292  NOTES 

other  of  his  life — yet  he  had  strong  misgivings  about  its 
reception,  and  as  he  at  last  stepped  before  the  audience 
at  the  invitation  of  Mr.  Bryant  he  felt  miseries  of 
embarrassment  from  his  sense  of  the  unaccustomed 
conditions,  the  critical  and  refined  audience,  his  own 
ungainliness,  and  his  ill-fitting  and  wrinkled  clothes. 
But  as  the  fervor  of  speaking  grew  upon  him,  his  con- 
sciousness of  these  things  faded  away,  while  the  audi- 
ence with  attention  fixed  upon  the  argument  unfolding 
in  matchless  clearness  and  precision,  saw  only  the  sway- 
ing figure  of  one  transfigured  by  lofty  moral  earnestness 
and  the  vision  of  a  high  ideal — "  If  any  part  of  the  audi- 
ence," say  Nicolay  and  Hay  in  their  account,  "  came 
with  the  expectation  of  hearing  the  rhetorical  fireworks 
of  the  *  half-horse,  half-alligator '  variety,  they  met 
novelty  of  an  unlooked  for  kind.  In  Lincoln's  entire 
address  he  neither  introduced  an  anecdote  nor  essayed 
a  witticism;  and  the  first  half  of  it  does  not  contain 
even  an  illustrative  figure  or  a  poetical  fancy.  It  was 
the  quiet  searching  exposition  of  the  historian,  and  the 
terse,  compact  reasoning  of  the  statesman,  about  an 
abstract  principle  of  philosophy  in  language  well-nigh 
as  restrained  and  colorless  as  he  would  have  employed 
in  arguing  a  case  before  a  court.  Yet  such  was  the  apt 
choice  of  words,  the  easy  precision  of  sentences,  the 
simple  strength  of  propositions,  the  fairness  of  every 
point  he  assumed,  and  the  force  of  every  conclusion  he 
drew — that  his  listeners  followed  him  with  the  interest 
and  delight  a  child  feels  in  its  easy  mastery  of  a  plain 
sum  in  arithmetic." 

The  effect  of  the  speech  was  remarkable.  All  the 
daily  papers  printed  it  in  full  on  the  following  day. 
The  Tribune,  said:  "Mr.  Lincoln  is  one  of  nature's 
orators.  .  .  .  The  tones,  the  gestures,  the  kindling 
eye,  and  the  mirth-provoking  look  defy  the  reporter's 
skill.  The  vast  assemblage  frequently  rang  with  cheers 
and    shouts    of    applause,    which    were    prolonged    and 


NOTES  293 

intensified  at  the  close.  No  man  ever  before  made 
such  an  impression  upon  a  New  York  audience." 

"  Before  Lincohi  made  his  Cooper  Institute  Speech/' 
says  Rhodes  (Mist,  of  U.  S.  vol.  ii.  p.  458),  "the  men- 
tion of  his  name  as  a  possible  nominee  for  President 
would  have  been  considered  a  joke  anywhere  except  in 
Illinois,  Indiana,  Ohio,  and  Iowa."  This  and  his  other 
Eastern  speeches,  however,  "made  it  patent  that  he 
might  become  a  formidable  opponent  of  Seward." 

In  criticism  upon  the  speech,  Horace  Greeley,  in  a 
lecture  published  in  the  Century  Magazine  for  July, 
1892,  has  made  this  striking  comment  upon  its  quality: 
**  Every  citizen  has  certain  conceptions,  recollections, 
convictions,  notions,  prejudices,  which  to.gcther  make 
up  what  he  terms  his  politics.  The  canvasser's  art 
consists  in  making  him  believe  and  feel  that  an  over- 
ruling majorit}""  of  these  preconceptions  ally  him  to  that 
side  whereof  said  canvasser  is  the  champion.  In  other 
words  he  seeks  to  belittle  those  points  whereon  his 
auditor  is  at  odds  with  him,  and  emphasizes  those 
wherein  they  two  arc  in  accord;  thus  persuading  the 
hearer  to  sympathize,  act.  and  vote  with  the  speaker. 
And  with  this  conception  in  view,  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
pronounce  Mr.  Lincoln's  speech  at  Cooper  Institute  in 
the  spring  of  i860  the  very  best  political  address  to 
which  I  ever  listened,  and  I  have  heard  some  of  Web- 
ster's grandest.  As  a  literary  effort,  it  would  not  of 
course  bear  comparison  with  many  of  Webster's 
speeches;  but  regarded  as  an  effort  to  convince  the 
largest  possible  number  that  they  ought  to  be  on  the 
speaker's  side,  not  on  the  other,  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
pronounce  it  unsurpassed." 

Divested,  as  it  is,  of  the  personality  of  debate  and  the 
incidents  of  local  politics;  developed  without  the  restric- 
tions imposed  by  the  conditions  of  public  debate,  the 
Cooper  Institute  address  is,  in  form  and  in  substance, 
the  best  statement  of  the  broad  and  universal  printj- 


294  NOTES 

pies  of  the  anti-slaTCiy  argnment  made  pricr  to  the 
Civil  War.  The  student  will  find  it  profitable  to  com- 
pare it  with  Lincoln's  speeches  in  the  Freeport  Debste, 
with  the  Tiew  of  contrasting  its  saperiority  in  the  in 
of  expression.  As  showing  the  minute  thoronghres? 
of  its  pi^paration.  it  is  said  to  have  taken  the  Xr  ,v 
Ycrk  Tribmme  t-iree  weeks  to  verify  the  statements  of 
i:.:-.    -"  this  address. 

215: 17.    That  wing  of   the    Democracy  headed   by 
Senator  Douglas.     I"    :^::    I       -^     r  ;    ::       :e 

216: 19.     Does    ihe    proper    division    of    local    from 
Federal    authority.    .    .    .      The    if^.ie    thus 

stated  was  of  oDurse  a  comio'l^-S.  isiut    ::'   ::".t    ::e-.::.:s 


-    -      -      -    F-    -i- 

216:  31.     In  1784. 

Lhe  Congress  •::  '.':. 


.55  bv 


219:1a.  North  Carclir.E  ceded  .  .  .  the  state  of 
Te-nessee.  "In  17*50  Congre??  had  accepted  the  ces- 
5  :  :  Xortb  Car :  :r  1  : :. :  ^  1 :. :  f  :  "  the  express  con- 
1      :  "  :     :  ivery    : ;  t  r  f     ^  r       :; :  r : .:  rbed."     „  -  ;  ; :  5 : 

5    ;;:  :  5        r  Triir    p.  88. 

219: 12-    A  few  years  later    Georgia   ceded 
Mississippi   and   Alabama.    In    1798   this   cession   was 
acceptei   " ;  _  -:  ^s. 

231:  ID.  Tile  warning  against  sectional  parties  given 
by  Washington  in  his  Farewell  Address.  The  passage 
i'     ir^    -  :'    iT-    :-T    '-''-■/-z\    ■■  It   is    of    infinite 

monic:.     .-:  ;     j  5    :  _   :  ;  r.v^-'-y  estimate  the  immense 
lalne     :  y        :  1 .    Vnion  to  your  collective  and 

indivic  ^  -         :;        :-  yo'T  should  cherish  a  cordial, 

babittii     i.:i_    1^^1:1::    _:.=  ^::^,  iment  to  it;  accustom:-^ 


SOTES  29S 

yourselves  to  think  and  speak  of  it  as  of  the  f  -im 

of  your  political  safety  and  prosperity;  watching  for 
its  preservation  with  jealous  anxiety:  .  .  .  and  indig- 
nantly frowning  upon  the  first  dawning  of  any  attempt 
to  alienate  any  portion  of  our  country  from  the  rest, 
or  to  enfeeble  the  sacred  ties  which  now  link  together 
the  various  parts." 

233: 18.  What  is  your  proof?  Harper's  Ferry! 
John  Brown's  raid  upon  Harper's  Ferr>-,  'oegir.nir.g 
Oct-  16,  1859.  was  one  of  the  most  dramatic  episodes  of 
the  anti-slavery  agitation  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War.  John  Brown,  a  native  of  Connecticut,  with 
his  sons  an  active  participant  in  the  Kansas  border 
warfare  in  1856,  began  early  in  1857,  on  the  pretext  of 
securing  aid  for  that  contest,  to  collect  material  secretly 
for  an  invasion  of  Virginia;  also  to  drill  a  military 
company.  He  gradually  enlisted  the  sympathy  and  se- 
cured some  contributions  from  Xorthem  Abolitionists. 
But  the  impracticable  character  of  the  man  and  his 
enterprise  for  destroying  slavery  in  Virginia  became 
quickly  apparent  to  most  of  them.  Undaunted  by  his 
slender  support,  however,  he  appeared  in  Virginia  in 
July,  1859,  and  for  about  three  months  was  plotting  the 
capture  of  Harper's  Ferry,  a  small  town  in  which  was 
located  a  government  arsenal.  BrovsTi's  idea  was  that 
the  slaves  would  fiock  to  his  standard  as  soon  as  it  was 
raised,  and  that  by  arming  them  and  withdrawing  his 
force  to  the  mountains,  he  would  presently  create  an 
insurrection  sufficiently  formidable  to  destroy  the  sys- 
tem of  slavery  in  Virginia  and  perhaps  eventually 
throughout   the   South. 

On  Oct.  16,  1859,  he  captured  the  government  arsenal 
with  his  force  of  eighteen  men.  For  two  days  he  held 
the  works  against  an  increasing  force  of  assailants.  At 
length  Brevet  Col.  Robt.  E.  Lee,  with  eighty  marines, 
captured  Brown  with  six  men,  all  that  were  left  of  his 
force.    The  seven  were  quickly  tried,  convicted  of  trea- 


296  NOTES 

son,  and  hanged.  John  Brown  met  his  fate  with  a 
heroism  which  extorted  the  admiration  of  his  enemies. 

John  Brown  was  a  fanatic.  Yet  there  was  ingrained 
in  his  character,  inflexible  resolution,  unsurpassed 
physical  and  moral  heroism,  and  a  sort  of  stern  Puritan 
idealism,  all  of  which  invite  a  comparison  of  the  man 
with  the  psalm-singing  warriors  of  Cromwell's  time. 
These  elements  of  character  we  must  consider,  as  well 
as  the  political  tension  of  the  time,  before  we  compre- 
hend the  tremendous  moral  effect  of  this  Quixotic  raid 
upon  the  country  at  large.  For  a  considerable  period  it 
dominated  all  political  discussion.  Lincoln's  judgment 
of  the  affair  expressed  in  this  address  represents  the 
general  opinion  of  the  present  day. 

235:6.  What  induced  the  Southampton  insurrection. 
"  In  August  of  1831,  a  slave  insurrection  broke  out  in 
Southampton,  Va.,  under  the  leadership  of  Nat  Turner, 
and  more  than  sixty  white  persons,  most  of  them 
women  and  children,  were  massacred  in  cold  blood." 
(Burgess:  The  Middle  Period,  p.  249.)  Both  at  the 
North  and  at  the  South  it  was  generally  believed  that 
the  insurrection  was  instigated  by  the  Abolitionists. 
The  Abolitionist  historians  deny  that  such  was  the  case. 

235:27.  The  slave  revolution  in  Hayti.  The  slaves 
of  Hayti  rose  in  insurrection  on  August  23,  1791.  For 
several  years  a  terrible  struggle  went  on  between  the 
representatives  of  French  authority  and  the  negroes 
under  the  leadership  of  Tousaint  L'Ouverture  and  his 
successors,  ending  with  the  independence  of  the  negro 
republic.  The  contest  was  waged  throughout  its  length 
with  extreme  ferocity  and  cruelty. 

235:29.  The  Gunpowder  Plot.  The  Gunpowder  Plot 
was  a  design  to  blow  up  the  English  House  of  Lords, 
conceived  in  1604  by  certain  Catholic  opponents  of  the 
religious  policy  of  that  body.  Twenty-six  barrels  of 
powder  were  stored  in  a  vault  beneath  the  chamber  in 
which  the  Lords  rnet,  and  it  was  planned  to  explode  th^ 


NOTES  207 

powder  on  the  5th  of  November,  1605.  Twenty  per- 
sons were  admitted  to  the  plot,  who  kept  it  a  secret 
for  a  year  and  a  half.  Ultimately,  however,  one  of  the 
number,  wishing  to  warn  a  particular  friend  among  the 
Lords,  despatched  him  a  mysterious  note  of  warning, 
which  led  to  an  investigation,  and  the  discovery  of  the 
plot.  Guy  Fawkes,  the  leader,  and  all  his  accomplices, 
were  arrested  and  executed,  or  else  killed  in  resisting 
arrest. 

237:  10.  Orsini's  attempt  on  Louis  Napoleon.  On 
January  14,  1858,  a  gang  of  desperadoes  under  Felice 
Orsini  attempted  to  assassinate  Napoleon  III.  As  the 
gang  had  made  London  its  base  of  operations,  a  strong 
feeling  of  resentment  against  England  arose  in  France 
because   its   members    had    found    shelter   there. 

237:  17.  Helper's  Book.  Hinton  R.  Helper  was  the 
author  of  "The  Impending  Crisis  of  the  South,"  a  book 
published  in  1857.  Because  of  its  bitter  attack  upon  the 
economic  and  moral  aspects  of  slavery,  the  book  pro- 
duced a  great  sensation,  and  its  author,  a  Southern  man, 
writing  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  "poor  whites," 
was  obliged  to  become  a  fugitive. 


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TENNYSON  :  The  Princess.  Ed.  by  L.  A.  Sherman,  Univ.  of  Nebr. 

Ixi-l-i8s  pp 60C. 

THACKERAY  :  English   Humorists.     Ed.  by  W.  L.  Phelps,  Yale. 

xli+:i6o  pp 80C. 

SPECIMENS  OF  PROSE  COMPOSITION. 

The  Short  Story.    Ed.by  G.  H.  NETTLETON.Yale.  vii4-22gpp.  50c. 
Forms  of  Discourse.     Ed.  by  E.  H.  Lewis,  Lewis  Inst.,  Chicago. 

viii+:567  pp 60C. 

Prose  Narration.    Ed.  by  W.  T.  BREWSTER,  Columbia.  xxxviii+ 

2og  pp 50c. 

Prose  Description.  Ed.  by  C.  S.  Baldwin,  Yale,  xlvii+145  pp.  soc. 
Exposition.     Ed.  b\' H.  Lamont,  Brown  Univ.  xxix+180  pp.  50c. 
Argumentation.     Ed.  bv  G.  P.  Baker,  Harvard.  vii-(-i86  pp.  50c. 
SPECIMENS  OF  ENGLISH  VERSE. 

Ed.  by  Raymond  M.  Alden.     459  pp $i«2S 

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